THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


BROAD-CAST 


BROADCAST 


By 

ERNEST    CROSBY 

Author  of  "  Plain  Talk  in  Psalm  and  Parable' 
"Tolstoy  and  His  Message"  etc.  etc 


FUNK    and    WAGNALLS    COMPANY, 
44-60,  East  23rd  Street, 
New  York, 
1905 


OS 


To 
EDWARD    CARPENTER 


FEER  beholding  things  divine, 
Prophet  of  the  olden  line,  — 
Trumpeting  a  message  clear 
For  the  few  with  ears  to  hear,  — 
What  though  man  be  deaf  to-day  ? 
Truth  is  bound  to  make  its  way. 
Soon  the  world  will  be  content 
To  uprear  your  monument. 
Pardon  my  impatient  pen 
That  it  cannot  wait  till  then. 
Fare  you  better,  —  fare  you  worse, 
If  upon  this  scroll  of  verse 
One  whom  you  have  taught  to  think 
Writes  your  name  in  fading  ink  ? 


BROADCAST 

"  CO  is  the  kingdom  of  God, 

A  s  if  one  should  cast  seed  in  the  ground, 
And  should  sleep  and  arise,  night  and  day, 
And  the  seed  should   spring   and   grow   up, 
He  knoweth  not  how,  for  the  earth 
Bringeth  forth  fruit  of  herself." 

Thus  would  I  sow  to  the  winds 

Broadcast  the  seed  that  may  bear 

Fruit  in  the  harvest  to  be. 

Others  may  rase  and  destroy, — 

Tear  down,  demolish  and  waste  ; — 

Others  may  frame  and  construct, 

Fitting  together  the  stones, 

As  they  think,  of  the  city  of  God. 

Mine  be  the  lowlier  task, — 

Mine  be  the  dropping  of  seed 

In  the  long  silent  furrows  of  earth, 

Where  she  bringeth  forth  fruit  of  herself. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

DEDICATION.     To  EDWARD  CARPENTER       ...         5 

"  Seer  beholding  things  divine." 

BROADCAST         6 

"  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God." 

DEMOCRACY         9 

"  I  saw  laws  and  customs  and  creeds." 
FROM  THE  SANSCRIT 26 

"  As  the  young  mother  clasps  her  infant  son." 
STIGMATA  LIBERTATIS         '27 

"  Tell  me  what  the  signs  may  be." 

GOD'S  GIFT '28 

"  Where  is  my  gift,"  said  God,  "  that  I  gave  to  men  ?  " 

THE  LAND  OF  THE  NOONDAY  NIGHT — A    MINER'S 

SONG 29 

"  We  have  eyes  to  see  like  yours." 
THE  COTTON  MILL         31 

"  Ogre  dread  !  Slavery  raised  from  the  dead  !  " 
THE  STOKER 35 

"  Now  and  then  a  stoker  came  up  to  breathe  'tween  decks." 

THE  ESCUTCHEON 35 

"  Pounce  on  the  innocent,  Powers-that-be !  " 

CORONAL        36 

"  Lo,  the  peoples, — all  of  them, — " 
BEATUS  ILLE 37 

"  Happy  the  man  who,  probing  what  is  meant." 

To  ST.  FRANCIS  OF  ASSISI 37 

"  Dear  Francis,  did  Assisi's  burghers  frown." 

THE  SCHOOL  OF  RICHES 38 

"  Blessed  are  the  poor  who  know." 

LOOK  SHARP  ! 39 

"  Look  sharp  !  thou  art  one  of  God's  eyes." 

NOT  A  CHRISTIAN 40 

"  So  you  condemn  him  once  for  all." 
BUDDHA 40 

"  Passionless,  contemplative,  free  from  desire." 
RELIGION 41 

"  The  childish  mistaking  of  pictures  for  facts." 

CAIN 41 

"  Nay,  flee  not  from  me." 

To  NERO 45 

"  Nero,  old  dog,  I  see  myself  looking  out." 
7 


8  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

APRIL 49 

"  See  the  apple  orchard." 
SPRING  THOUGHTS 50 

"  The  leaves  are  not  yet  out." 

WORSHIP        59 

"  Bow  before  God  in  prone  humility." 

IN  THE  GARDEN 59 

"  1  spied  beside  the  garden  bed." 

WINE  OF  ETERNITY 60 

"  God  took  a  vial  from  its  place." 

YESTERDAY 61 

"  To-day  and  to-morrow  will  change  " 

MOODS 62 

"  There  is  nothing  but  moods." 
THE  SEERS 72 

"  Like  mountain  peaks." 
IN  THE  SADDLE 72 

"  Mounted  on  Ahmar,  flying  at  a  mad  run." 
ON  THE  SUEZ  CANAL 74 

"  A  starry  night  on  the  Suez  Canal !  " 

CHRISTMAS 76 

"  On  the  first  of  the  lengthening  days." 

JUDGE  NOT 78 

"  Why  do  I  punish  ?  " 

TOWN  PICTURES 79 

"  I  have  travelled  many  ways." 

COUNTRY  PICTURES 96 

"  Tramping  down  the  broad  green,  valley." 

THE  LIVING  UNIVERSE 102 

"  What  are  you,  stars  of  night  ?  " 

LOVE 104 

"  When  I  thought  you  were  perfect." 

GOD'S  WINDOW        106 

"  God  has  a  house  that's  wide  and  tall." 

MY  SOUL 107 

"  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  " 

MY  SOUL  AGAIN 1 20 

"  '  Here  where  I  live ' — thus  spake  my  soul.  " 

YOU 121 

"  I  would  not  break  your  will." 

MICROCOSM 121 

"  I  split  a  grain  of  common  sand." 

A  PRAYER 122 

"  Come  to  me,  woo  me,  Soul  of  the  All !  " 

HINTS 122 

"  Little  care  we  for  the  mark." 
APOLOGIA 123 

"  I  pulled  up  the  flowers  in  my  garden." 

AFTERTHOUGHT         -126 

"  When  these  new  ideas  of  our*  b*eom«  trito." 


Democracy 

I 

I  SAW  laws  and  customs  and  creeds  and 
Bibles  rising  like  emanations  from  men 
and  women. 

I  saw  the  men  and  women  bowing  down  and 
worshipping  these  cloudy  shapes,  and  I 
saw  the  shapes  turn  upon  them  and  rend 
them. 

Nay,  but  men  and  women  are  the  supreme 
facts ! 

II 

How  rarely  have  men  revered  the  truly 
reverend,  and  respected  the  truly  respect- 
able ! 

How  much  of  reverence  has  been,  and  still  is, 
mere  fetish-worship  ! 

Reverence  for  Moloch  and  Juggernaut,  who 
shall  count  its  victims  ? 

Respect  for  tyrants  and  despots,  for  lying 
priests  and  blind  teachers,  how  it  has 
darkened  the  pages  of  history  ! 

There  is  only  one  true  respect,  the  respect  for 
the  conscious  life  that  fulfils  its  true 
function. 

Revere  humanity  wherever  you  find  it,  in  the 
judge  or  in  the  farm  hand,  but  do  not 
revere  any  institution  or  office  or  writing. 


io  DEMOCRACY 

As  soon  as  anything  outside  of  divine  humanity 

is    revered    and    respected,    it    becomes 

dangerous, — 
And  every  step  forward  in  the  annals  of  man 

has  been  over  the  prostrate  corpse  of  some 

ancient  unmasked  reverence. 

Ill 

And  yet  I  am  no  abolitionist. 

I  would  abolish  nothing  except  by  disuse. 

Slavery  is  good  for  those  who  believe  in  slavery, 

for  in  a  world  of  slaves  there  must  be 
'    masters,  and  men  with  the  hearts  of  slaves 

had  better  be  slaves. 
Government  is  good  for  those  who  believe  in 

government,   and   punishment   for   those 

who  believe  in  punishment,  and  war  for 

those  who  believe  in  war. 
Anything  is  good  enough  for  the  man  who 

believes  in  it,  and  the  first  step  upward  is 

not  abolition  but  disbelief. 

IV 

They  write  histories  of  the  French  Revolution 

as  if  it  were  over. 
The  French  Revolution  is  not  over ;  it  never 

will  be  over. 
That   episode   was   a   mere   skirmish   on   the 

picket-line. 
The  duel  between  oppression  and  freedom  is 

the  very  essence  of  life. 
The    French    Revolution    began    ages   before 

David  gathered  his  Coxey  army  at  the 


DEMOCRACY  n 

cave  of  Adullam, — ages  before  the  great 
labour-leaders  Moses  and  Aaron  put  them- 
selves at  the  head  of  the  Hebrew  brick- 
makers'  strike. 

It  will  not  end  before  the  earth  freezes  into  a 
Spitzbergen  or  is  scorched  into  a  Sahara. 


The  lists  are  open  ;  the  combat  is  on. 

The  brute-man  of  the  past  and  the  God-man 
of  the  future  must  fight  it  out  while  heaven 
and  earth  look  on  expectant. 

You  can  easily  distinguish  them  by  their  wea- 
pons. 

The  brute-man  fights  with  claws  and  teeth, 
with  spear  and  sword,  with  bayonet  and 
cannon  and  bomb. 

The  God-man  has  for  his  artillery  naught  but 
the  naked  truth  and  undissembled  love. 

Yet  the  brute-man  blanches  with  the  sure 
presentiment  of  his  speedy  overthrow,  and 
winces  as  the  God-man  gazes  upon  him 
with  infinite  compassion. 

VI 

A  murder  on  behalf  of  the  people  ? 

That  is  no  place  for  murders, — they  belong  on 

the  other  side. 
Poor,  brave,  cowardly,  cruel  fool,  who  thought 

the  people  could  be  helped  by  murder,  and, 

thinking  to  lay  low  oppression,  well-nigh 

laid  freedom  low ! 


12  DEMOCRACY 

But  there  are  other  fools, — those  who  suppose 
that  a  foul  deed  can  for  long  set  back  the 
:l    hands  of  time. 
Can  a  crime  alter  facts  ? 
Can  any  mad  assassin  kill  the  eternal  truth  ? 

VII 

Clear  the  field  for  the  grand  tournament  of 

the  nations, — 
The  struggle  to  think  the  best  thought  and  to 

express  it  best  in  tone  and  colour  and  form 

and  word, — 
The  struggle  to  do  the  greatest  deeds  and  lead 

the  noblest  and  most  useful  lives, — 
The  struggle  to  see  clearest  and  know  truest  and 

love  strongest. 
Your  other  blood  and  bludgeon  contests  but 

postpone  the  real  fray. 
The  true  knights  are  yearning  to  enter  the  lists, 

and  you  block  the  high  festival  with  your 

brawling. 
Is  it  possible  that  you  mistake  this  horse-play 

for  the  real  event  of  history  ? 
Away  with  all  your  brutal  disorder,  and  clear 

the  field  for  the  tournament  of  Man. 

VIII 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  above  people  ;  I  wish  to  be 

with  people. 
The  tiresome,  hateful  climb  upward  on  their 

heads  and  shoulders, — 


DEMOCRACY  13 

(It  hurts  their  heads  and  shoulders,  but  it  hurts 

my  feet  still  more), — 
The  thin,  empty  air,  thinner  and  emptier  and 

less  satisfying  the  higher  I  get, — 
The   platform  of   envious   faces   on  which   I 

stand, — 
The  continual  scrambling  and  elbowing  round 

me  and  over  me, — 

The  aimlesSness  and  cruelty  of  it  all, — 
I  ajn  sick  to  death  of  it. 
The  soles  of  my  feet  yearn  for  the  feel  of  God's 

sod. 

I  do  not  wish  to  be  above  people. 
I  wish  to  be  with  people. 

IX 

The  common  people, — why  common   people  ? 

Does  it  not  mean  common  life,  common  aspira- 
tions, community  of  interests,  communion 
of  man  with  man  ? 

Does  it  not  imply  the  spirit  of  communism,  of 
fellowship,  of  brotherhood  ? 

Does  it  not  suggest  that  human  life  down  at  the 
bottom  is  more  fluid  and  intermingled  and 
social  than  up  at  the  top  ? 

Is  not  all  this  hidden  away  in  the  words  "  com- 
mon people  ?  " 


Would  you  make  brothers  of  the  poor  by  giv- 
ing to  them  ? 


14  DEMOCRACY 

Try  it,  and  learn  that  in  a  world  of  injustice  it 

is  the  most  unbrotherly  of  acts. 
There  is  no  gulf  between  men  so  wide  as  the 

alms-gift. 
There  is  no  wall  so  impassable  as  money  given 

and  taken. 
There  is  nothing  so  unfraternal  as  the  dollar, — it 

is  the  very  symbol  of  division  and  discord. 
Make  brothers  of  the  poor  if  you  will,  but  do  it 

by  ceasing  to  steal  from  them  ; 
For  charity  separates  and  only  justice  unites. 


XI 

Peace  between  capital  and  labour,  is  that  all 

that  you  ask  ? 

Is  peace  then  the  only  thing  needful  ? 
There  was  peace  enough  in  southern  slavery. 
There  is  a  peace  of  life  and  another  peace  of 

death. 

It  is  well  to  rise  above  violence. 
It  is  well  to  rise  superior  to  anger. 
But  if  peace  means  final  acquiescence  in 

wrong, — if  your  aim  is  less  than  justice 

and  peace,  forever  one  — then  your  peace 

is  a  crime. 

XII 

I  am  homesick, — 

Homesick    for  the  home  that    I  never  have 
seen, — 


DEMOCRACY  15 

For  the  land  where   I  shall  look   horizontally 

into  the  eyes  of  my  fellows, — 
The  land  where  men  rise  only  to  lift, — 
The  land  where  equality  leaves  men  free  to 

differ  as  they  will, — 
The  land  where  freedom  is  breathed  in  the  air 

and  courses  in  the  blood, — 
Where  there  is  nothing  over  a  man  between  him 

and  the  sky, — 
Where  the  obligations  of  love  are  sought  for  as 

prizes  and  where  they  vary  with  the  moon. 
That  land  is  my  true  country.     I  am  here  by 

some   sad   cosmic   mistake, — and    I    am 

homesick. 


XIII 

A  strange  lot  this,  to  be  dropped  down  in  a 
world  of  barbarians, — 

Men  who  see  clearly  enough  the  barbarity  of  all 
ages  except  their  own, — 

Who  shudder  at  the  thought  of  wheel  and  fag- 
got, of  putrid  heads  displayed  not  so  long 
ago  on  Temple  Bar, — of  stinking  corpses 
hanging  in  chains  along  the  highways  while 
vultures  devoured  them, — of  mere  boys 
put  to  death  for  stealing  a  shilling, — and 
who  notwithstanding  are  snugly  contented 
with  the  survival  of  gibbets  and  the  happy 
invention  of  electrocution  chairs, — 

Who  are  outraged  at  the  picture  of  black  priests 
hovering  about  the  flames  of  an  auto-da-fe, 


i6  DEMOCRACY 

but  applaud  their  successors  to-day  as  they 
encourage  with  their  blessings  the  butchery 
of  war, — 

Who  deplore  the  ancient  miseries  of  the  galleys, 
the  torture  of  witnesses,  the  agonies  of 
captives  crucified  or  given  to  the  lions,  but 
see  nothing  wrong  in  our  overcrowded 
prisons,  our  vice-breeding  jails  and  our 
cold,  relentless  machine  of  justice, — 

Who  look  down  on  the  ages  when  there  were  no 
societies  for  the  prevention  of  cruelty  to 
animals,  and  yet  are  blind  to  the  horrors 
of  our  abattoirs  and  laboratories,  and  take 
pleasure  in  killing  and  maiming  helpless 
birds  and  harmless  little  brother  beasts, — 

Who  condemn  the  brutality  of  the  Spanish  In- 
quisition, but  sanction  the  writhing  pains 
of  the  battle-field,  the  sabred  face,  the 
dynamite  gun  and  the  dum-dum  bullet, — 

Who  abhor  chattel  slavery,  but  accept  the  dis- 
mal, hopeless  enslavement  of  factory  hands 
and  the  starvation  of  thousands  out  of 
work  as  heaven-born  arrangements, — 

Who  sing  paeans  over  the  fall  of  political  des- 
potism, while  they  have  scarcely  a  word 
of  criticism  for  the  industrial  tyrants  who 
tread  us  under  foot, — 

And  who — strangest  of  all — are  absolutely 
ignorant  of  the  fact  that  future  generations 
will  consider  them  just  as  barbarous  as 
their  predecessors. 

It  is  a  curious  destiny  indeed  to  be  planted  in 
the  midst  of  such  a  people. 


DEMOCRACY  17 

XIV 

And  yet  they  boast  of  their  high  breeding  and 
accuse  us  of  despising  it. 

Despise  high  breeding  ?  Nay,  but  we  should  be 
fools  indeed  to  throw  overboard  such  a 
treasure. 

Good  manners,  the  nice  sense  of  what  is  fitting, 
the  refinement  which  is  so  difficult  to  learn 
in  a  single  lifetime, — far  be  it  from  us  to 
risk  these  hard-earned  possessions  of  the 
race  in  any  social  cataclysm. 

But  is  it  not  you,  rather,  who  put  them  in 
peril — 

You  who  would  monopolize  these  gifts  and  re- 
strict them  to  your  narrow  circle  ;  you,  who 
hoard  them  like  your  gold  and  silver  ; — 
who  find  the  chief  value  of  them  in  the 
fact  that  others  have  them  not  ? 

"Noblesse  oblige,"  fine  thought, — fair  flower  of 
feudalism,  foretelling  a  summer  of  even 
fairer  bloom.  But  "  Manhood  obliges," 
is  not  that  finer  still  ? 

What  are  good  manners  but  the  traditional 
expression  of  a  good  heart  ? 

They  are  the  small  change  of  unselfishness,  and 
if  the  heart  is  not  pure  metal,  they  ring 
false  on  the  counter. 

If  you  are  selfish  within — if  you  wish  to  keep 
these  graces  to  yourselves, — by  that  very 
fact  they  become  the  cheap  trimmings  of 
hypocrisy. 

As  for  us,  we  would  make  unselfishness  common 

B.  B 


i8  DEMOCRACY 

to  all,  and  the  natural  expression  of  it  in 

outward  life  would  follow. 
We  have  nothing  against  aristocracy, — we  wish 

to  spread  it  abroad  and  its  manners. 
We  herald  the  advent  of  the  true  aristocracy, 

the  rule  of  the  best  over  the  worst  in  every 

human  soul. 
We  would  not  for  the  world  rob  mankind  of  one 

gracious  word  or  action  ; 
But  our  aim  is  to  make  of  the  treasures  which 

you  lock  up  in  your  palaces  the  common 

coin  of  the  realm. 

XV 

The  few,  with  their  accumulation  of  money, 

shall  not  rule. 

Have  we  rid  ourselves  of  kings  for  nothing  ? 
Is  an  exorbitant  railway  fare  or  telegraph  charge 

less  tyrannous  taxation  than  ship-money 

or  a  duty  on  tea  ? 
Charles  the  First  and  George  the  Third  have 

risen  from  the  dead,  but  industrial  equality 

will  come  as  political  equality  came. 
Our  fathers  died  for  the  shadow, — we  demand 

the  substance. 
The  few  shall  not  rule. 


XVI 

It  was  all  so  simple  in  the  old  days,  when  people 
saw,  or  thought  they  saw,  tyranny  and 
oppression  centred  in  one  person,  and  in 


DEMOCRACY  19 

attacking  and  destroying  that  person  were 
sure  they  were  saving  mankind. 

How  easy  it  is  to  treat  a  boil  just  as  a  boil  and 
to  forget  the  corrupt  blood  that  produced 
it,  running  into  every  nook  and  cranny  of 
the  body ! 

To-day,  alas,  the  tyrant  spreads  like  a  vicious 
kind  of  nervous  system  throughout  the 
entire  frame  of  society. 

I  am  part  tyrant,  part  slave,  as  we  all  are  in 
varying  degree,  and  there  seems  to  be  no 
other  alternative  possible. 

We  are  caught  in  the  meshes  of  our  own  web. 

We  must  disentangle  the  tyrant  from  us,  and 
this  new  Gordian  knot  will  not  yield  its 
secret  to  the  sword. 

We  must  thresh  the  chaff  from  the  corn,  and 
each  grain  has  its  separate  outworn  casing 
waiting  to  be  winnowed  away. 

Alas,  it  is  no  simple  rebellion  on  the  old  lines 
that  calls  for  our  adhesion  and  support ; 

It  is  rather  a  complicated  labour  of  unravelling 
and  extricating  and  liberating  from  the  net- 
work of  poisonous  creepers  of  the  ages, 
whose  roots  are  in  our  own  hearts. 

XVII 

Democracy,  what  called  you  into  being  ? 
What  induced  you  to  persist  in  struggling  for 

centuries  to  tear  off  your  chains,  one  after 

another  ? 
It  was  the  longing  for  freedom,  the  desire  to 


20  DEMOCRACY 

grow  and  develop  and  thrive  untrammelled 
and  unrestrained,  the  determination  to 
have  no  masters  but  your  own  wisdom  and 
conscience  and  will. 

Now  that  you  have  nearly  reached  the  goal, — 
now  that  you  have  almost  achieved  the 
task, — how  is  it  that  you  have  forgotten 
your  object  and  renounced  the  freedom  for 
which  you  began  the  strife  ? 

Instead  of  knocking  off  the  last  shackles  you 
are  busy  patching  and  riveting  your  broken 
chains. 

You  are  having  recourse  to  restriction  and 
interference,  tying  the  hands  of  those  who 
would  aid  you,  hampering  the  free  play  of 
the  nation's  life. 

Will  you  be  your  own  Napoleon,  bringing  your 
own  revolution  to  naught  to  usher  in  again 
the  old  regime  ? 

Beware,  beware  of  chains,  though  they  be  of 
your  own  making  ;  they  were  ever  your 
curse,  and  how  can  they  become  a  blessing? 

You  have  rid  yourselves  of  your  ancient  tryants, 
but  their  death  was  in  vain  if  you  try  to 
adopt  their  manner  of  reigning. 

Stretch  forth  your  free  arms,  breathe  the  un- 
limited air,  and  think  no  more  of  using 
force  against  your  members. 

XVIII 

Liberty,  sad,  dethroned  queen,  though  all  the 
world  turn  against  you,  I  will  be  true  to 
you. 


DEMOCRACY  21 

Dragged  in  triumph  at  the  wheel  of  Coercion's 
chariot, — bowed  down,  dishevelled,  foot- 
sore,— though  you  be, — 

Though  the  fickle  populace,  which  but  yester- 
day hailed  your  accession  with  frantic  joy, 
now  hoot  and  hiss  you  and  deride, — 

Yet  I  still  perceive  the  majesty  of  your  mien 
and  look  and  gait,  and  I  acknowledge  my- 
self proudly  to  be  your  loyal  subject. 

Why  have  the  people  changed  ? 

Do  they  say  that  you  did  not  give  them  the 
prosperity  that  you  promised  ? 

Ah,  but  when  did  they  ever  trust  you  with  even 
half  the  power  ? 

When  did  they  ever  fairly  wrest  your  realm 
from  the  sway  of  your  victorious  rival  ? 

His  acts  of  tyranny  have  ever  afflicted  the  land. 

He  always  held  tight  in  his  fetters  the  soil,  the 
source  of  all,  and  trade,  the  distributor  of 
all. 

Were  they  so  foolish  as  to  charge  these  wrongs 
to  you  ? 

Because  Coercion  bore  heavily  upon  the  people, 
must  they  for  this  extend  his  rule  so  as  to 
make,  as  it  were,  a  balance  of  his  mis- 
deeds ? 

Shout  for  the  usurper,  you  mad,  incoherent 
throng  ! 

Little  reck  you  that  he  will  add  to  your  yoke, 
and,  where  there  were  whips,  chastize  you 
with  scorpions, 

Many  a  weary  year  may  pass  along,  ere  you 
bethink  you  again  of  your  lawful  queen. 


22  DEMOCRACY 

XIX 

Dear  America  ! 

Vast,  vigorous,  boastful,  untidy  mother  ! 

I  dwell  upon  your  faults,  not  as  an  unfilial  son, 

but  as  an  anxious  father, — for  you  are  my 

daughter  too. 
You  have  made  me  what  I  am,  and  now  it  is 

my  turn  to  make  you  what  I  would  have 

you  be. 

Let  others  toil  to  prepare  you  fitting  millinery  ; 
Let  them  seek  to  assure  you  health  and  strength 

of  body  ; 
My  part  will  rather  be  to  aid  quietly  in  forming 

your  soul. 
If  we  can  but  succeed  in  creating  for  you  a 

spirit  commensurate  with  your  greatness, 

the  rest  will  take  care  of  itself. 
The  folds  of  your  garments,  the  lines  of  your 

face  and  figure,  will  surely  take  on  the 

beauty  of  your  soul. 

What  nobler  task  is  there  on  earth  than  shap- 
ing the  soul  of  a  people  ? 


XX 

To  make  men  pull  together, — 

That  was  the  aim  which  civilization  set  before 

itself ; 

Men  pulled  together  at  the  word  of  command  ; 
The  pyramids  rose,  Rome  swallowed  the  earth, 

— men    worked    long    and    wearily    and 


DEMOCRACY  23 

without  a  doubt  that  here  was  the  finality 
of  things. 

Their  dreamers  and  sages  and  saints  could  pic- 
ture no  golden  age  without  slaves, 

And  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  made  them  toil. 

But  man  grew,  and  looked,  and  asked  why, 
and  slavery  shrivelled  and  died. 

And  still  the  object  was  to  make  men  pull  to- 
gether. 

And  the  wage-system  showed  the  way. 

One  man  grasped  all  the  good  things  he  could 
and  hugged  them,  and  said  to  those  who 
had  none,  "  Work  for  me  and  I  will  give 
you  a  little." 

Men  pulled  together  again  with  hunger  in  their 
eyes; 

Factories  sprang  up,  railways  encircled  the 
earth, — men  laboured  long  and  eagerly 
and  without  a  doubt  that  here  was  the 
finality  of  things. 

Their  dreamers  and  sages  and  saints  could  pic- 
ture no  golden  age  without  the  wage- 
system. 

And  the  strong  arm  of  the  law  guarded  the  piles 
of  good  things  and  let  the  men  go, 

For  now  men  strove  to  get  work,  and  it  was 
no  one's  interest  to  keep  them  through  the 
winter,  and  the  death  of  a  man,  such  as 
once  fetched  his  weight  in  com,  was  no 
longer  of  consequence,  for  another  would 
do  as  well. 

But  man  grows  and  looks,  and  asks  why,  and 
the  wage-system  quivers  with  terror. 


24  DEMOCRACY 

There    is    a    new     way    to    make  men  pull 

together. 
Love,    free  co-operation,    equal    service,    true 

honour    and    honesty, — have    you    never 

thought  of  these  things  ? 
Let  us  dream  better  than  the  old-dreamers, — 

and   pull   together. 


XXI 

Men's  laws, — laws  of  tsars  or  of  majorities 

counted  by  the  nose — 

Call  them  laws  if  you  will,  but  they  are  no  laws. 
Enforce  them  ;    drag  them  after  you  like  a 

corpse  in  a  hearse. 
No  matter  how  long   your  procession,   how 

grand    your    plumes    and    high-stepping 

horses, 
You  are  advancing  to  the  grave,  and,  go  as 

slow  as  you  please,  before  long  you  will  get 

there. 

God's  laws  are  other  than  these. 
They  live  and  breathe  and  enforce  themselves. 
They  lead  the  way  onward  with  back  turned 

to  the  cemetery. 
If  only  one  man  feels  the  attraction  and  follows, 

he  becomes  by  that  alone  the  autocrat  of 

the   world. 
When  two  or  three  join  him,  you  have  a  divine 

aristocracy. 
When  the  people  are  at  last  won  over,  there  is 

democracy  indeed. 


DEMOCRACY  25 

God's  laws  are  living  germs  and  they  quicken 
the  blood  in  spite  of  votes  and  edicts. 


XXII 

Where  are  the  leaders  who  will  show  us  the 
way  ? 

Where  are  the  discoverers  who  will  search  out 
the  secret  of  true  living  and  then  apply  it 
in  their  lives  ? 

We  are  ready  to  follow  them. 

When  they  discovered  the  uses  of  steam,  we 
adopted  their  invention  although  we  com- 
prehended it  not. 

When  they  lassoed  the  lightning,  and  broke  it 
in,  and  taught  it  to  carry  our  words  and 
voices  and  bodies,  and  steadily  to  illum- 
inate the  darkness,  then  we  appropriated 
their  inventions,  though  we  did  not  under- 
stand them. 

When  men  shall  have  discovered  the  proper 
functions  of  human  energy  and  the  way  to 
apply  it  to  free  and  social  living,  again  we 
shall  not  be  slow  to  adopt  their  invention, 
whether  it  passes  our  comprehension  or 
not. 

It  is  always  enough  that  a  few  find  the  best 
path, — forthwith  the  world  follows. 

We  do  not  want  more  education  or  books  or 
legislation. 

We  have  too  much  education,  too  many  books, 
too  many  laws  already. 


26  DEMOCRACY 

We  need  only,  here  and  there,  a  leader  to 
discover  and  apply  God's  laws  of  social 
industry,  and  we  will  throng  after  them  ; 
not  one  of  us  will  be  left  behind. 

XXIII 

And  who  will  lead  the  way  ? 

The  good  and  wise  must  lead. 

He  that  loves  most  is  the  best  and  wisest  and 

he  it  is  that  leads  already. 
Where  the  best  lover  sits  is  always  the  head  of 

the  table. 

Tell  the  great  secret  to  the  people. 
Let  the  people  love  and  they  will  lead. 
No  cunning  device  of  ballot-machinery  can 

give  them  the  power. 
No  system  of  common-schools,  spending  its 

energies  on  mind  alone,  can  give  them  the 

power. 
No  campaign  against  monopoly  and  oppression, 

however  it  may  promise  to  succeed,  can 

give  them  the  power. 
Nay,  but  let  the  people  love,  and  theirs  is  the 

power ! 


From  the  Sanscrit 

AS  the  young  mother  clasps  her  infant  son, 
So  let  us  cherish,  as  our  course  we  run, 
A  boundless  friendly  mind  toward  every  one. 


STIGMATA  LIBERTATIS         27 
Stigmata  Libertatis 

TELL  me  what  the  signs  may  be 
Which  forever  mark  the  free. 

First,  they  love  all  living  things 
Humbly, — yet  as  proud  as  kings. 

Then  of  man  they  think  no  ill, 
Let  him  do  whate'er  he  will. 

And  this  shows  their  freedom  too, 
That  they  grant  the  same  to  you. 

Neither  are  they  filled  with  woe 
Over  those  who  ripen  slow, 

For  they  know  that,  in  the  prime 
Of  the  spirit's  harvest-time, 

Comes  to  every  soul  the  hour 
When  it  opens  like  a  flower, 

While  the  universe  stands  by, 
Ever  ready  to  supply 

Lovingly  its  magic  aid, — 
Never  hurried,  never  stayed. 

Lastly,  thus  we  know  the  free, 
That  they  live  right  openly, 

Standing  naked  as  they  are, 
Unabashed  by  sun  or  star, 

For  they  deem  it  grievous  sin 
To  secrete  the  truth  within. 

Each  of  these  is  freedom's  sign. 
How  I  wish  that  it  were  mine  ! 


28  GOD'S    GIFT 

God's  Gift 

WHERE  is  my  gift,"  said  God,  "that  I 
gave   to   men — 
The  sun-wed,  fruitful  earth,  with  her  freight  of 

good 
For  all  their  wants  ?  What  mean  these  prayers 

for  food  ? 
Are  there  poor  in  a  world  which  bursts  with  its 

golden  stores  ? 

Who  are  the  few  that  dare  to  withhold  from  all 
My  gift  to  all  of  the  fruitful,  sun-wed  earth  ?  " 

And  the  few  replied  :  "  O,  Lord,  we  give  Thee 
thanks. 

Thou  gavest  the  earth  to  all,  it  is  true,  but  lo  ! 

Thy  angels,  Law  and  Order,  who  rule  the  world 

When  Thou  art  far  away,  have  learned  our 
worth, 

And  rightly  bestowed  on  us  Thine  inheri- 
tance." 

"  I  know  them  not,"  said  God  ;    "  they  are 

fiends  from  hell 
That  juggle  thus  with  the  gift  that  I  gave  to 

man. 

I  am  never  far  away  from  the  world  I  gave. 
And  now  once  more  and  forevermore  I  give 
This  fruitful  earth  anew  to  the  sons  of  men. 
Woe  to  the  fiends  who  shall  dare  usurp  my 

place  ! 

Woe  to  the  few  who  say  that  my  gift  is  theirs  ! 
Woe  to  the  man  who  grasps  his  neighbour's 

land  !  " 


LAND  OF  THE  NOONDAY  NIGHT  29 

The    Land     of     the    Noonday 
Night 

A  MINER'S  SONG. 

WE  have  eyes  to  see  like  yours 
Way  down  in  the  deep,  deep  mine, 
But  there's  nothing  to  mark  but  the  dreadful 

dark 

Where  the  sun  can  never  shine. 
On  the  banks  of  clammy  coal 

Our  lamps  cast  a  flickering  light 
At  the  bottom  drear  of  the  moist  black  hole 
In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

We  have  children  at  home  like  yours, 

But  at  eve  when  we  homeward  tread 
We  find  them  asleep  in  a  tangled  heap, 

Three  or  four  in  a  single  bed. 
In  the  morning  our  tasks  begin 

Before  the  sun  shines  bright, 
For  we  have  no  sun  and  we  have  no  kin 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

But  our  home  is  not  like  yours. 

'Tis  a  bare,  unpainted  shack, 
Where  the  raindrops  pour  on  the  shaky  floor, 

And  the  coal-dust  stains  it  black. 
Not  a  flower  or  blade  of  grass 

Can  escape  the  grimy  blight, 
For  the  face  of  our  yard  is  seared  and  scarred 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

But  the  men  who  own  the  mines, 
And  who  live  like  kings  of  old — 


30  LAND  OF  THE  NOONDAY  NIGHT 

Ah  !  little  they  care  how  their  wage-slaves  fare, 

So  long  as  they  get  their  gold  ! 
And  the  fire-damp  may  explode 

And  a  thousand  die  outright, 
For  the  men  come  cheap  who  go  down  deep 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

And  like  feathers  they  weigh  the  coal 

When  they  pay  us  by  the  head, 
But  for  you  who  buy  it  twice  too  high 

They  weigh  it  like  chunks  of  lead. 
And  our  wage  goes  back  in  rent — 

For  they  have  us  in  such  a  plight — 
And  they  squeeze  us  sore  at  the  company's 
store 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

And  we  labour  with  straining  arms 

For  the  pittance  they  deign  to  give, 
And  our  boys  must  quit  the  school  for  the  pit 

To  drudge  that  we  all  may  live. 
And  our  teeth  feel  the  grit  of  the  mine 

In  the  very  bread  we  bite, 
Till  our  inmost  soul  is  defiled  with  coal 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

And  if  in  the  end  we  dare 

To  assert  our  just  demands, 
Then  their  courts  emit  an  injunction  writ 

To  shackle  our  tongues  and  hands. 
And  if  in  spite  of  their  frown 

We  protest  that  we  will  unite, 
Then  they  lock  us  up  or  they  shoot  us  down 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 


THE  COTTON  MILL  31 

Who  was  it  that  made  the  coal  ? 

Our  God  as  well  as  theirs  ! 
If  He  gave  it  free  to  you  and  me, 

Then  keep  us  out  who  dares  ! 
Let  the  people  own  their  mines — 

Bitumen  and  anthracite — 
And  the  right  prevail  under  hill  and  dale 

In  the  land  of  the  noonday  night. 

The  Cotton  Mill 

OGRE  dread ! 
Slavery  raised  from  the  dead  ! 
I  see  you — not  in  the  fields  as  of  yore — 
But  stalking  the  factory  floor, 
Cracking  your  whip  overhead, 
While  pale-faced  children  droop  in  the  rum- 
bling roar, 

With  tiny  fingers  twining  the  hateful  thread, 
And  dreaming  of  bed. 

Half  gone  is  the  night. 

To  left   and  right 

An  acre  or  more  of  dim-lit  whirr  extends. 

For  six  dull  hours'  interminable  length 

These  babies  have  strained  their  strength  ; — 

Another  six  must  wear  away 

Before,  at  break  of  day, 

Their  torment  ends. 

What  is  that  piercing  cry  ? 

Only  another  thumb  and  finger  crushed  ; 

Another  little  hand  awry. 

The  cry  is  hushed. 


32  THE  COTTON  MILL 

The  girl  has  fainted,  but  the  surgeon  comes  ; 
How  skilfully  he  cuts  and  binds  and  sews. 
Fingers  to  sever,  and  thumbs, 
How  well  he  knows  ! 
Carelessness  maims  and  kills, 
And  children  will  be  careless  in  the  mills. 
Now  he  leads  her  out,  never  to  climb 
Those  stairs  again  to  earn  her  nightly  dime. 

Yes,  in  this  dismal  hall 

Broods  the  angel  of  death. 

Many  his  shapes. 

He  lurks  in  their  very  breath — 

In  the  cloud  of  cotton-dust  that  hangs  like  a 

pall, 

Over  all. 

Strange  that  a  child  escapes, 
For  dropsy,   the  wasting  sickness,   the  fatal 

cough, 

Crouch,  ready  to  carry  them  off. 
In  a  dozen  years  from  to-day 
Half   of    these    infant    slaves 
Will  sleep  in  forgotten  graves, 
More  happy  there  than  those  who  stay, 
Still  bound  to  the  wheel  of  the  mill, 
And  racked  and  tortured  still. 

Will  a  monument  ever  rise  to  attest 
How  they  fell  at  the  Ogre's  behest  ? 
Yes,  far  away  in  the  North 
Will  a  Herod's  palace  set  forth 
Why  they  laboured  and  died  ; 
For  its  splendours  will  hardly  hide 


THE  COTTON  MILL  33 

Its  foundation  laid  on  their  tombs, 
And  the  walls  of  its  sumptuous  rooms 
Cemented  with  children's  blood,  where  lingers 
The  trace  of  bruised  and  wearied  flesh  and 
mutilated  fingers. 

Murder  will  out ; 

And  the  palace  will  tell 

How  its  corner-stone  stands  firm  in  hell 

With  a  shout ! 

And,  who  knows  ?  our  Herod  may  build 

With  the  gold  of  the  killed 

A  church  to  his  devilish  god — his  Moloch,  who, 

from  his  throne 

Gave  him  the  world,  as  he  thinks,  for  his  own. 
And  asylum,  and  hospital,  too, 
May  spring  from  the  bleaching  bones 
Of  these  innocent  ones, 
Crying  to  heaven  the  truth 
Of  their  massacred  youth, 
And  the  story  of  Herod  anew 
In  an  epitaph  true. 

These  be  thy  triumphs,  O  Trade  ! 

Triumphs  of  peace,  do  they  say  ? — nay,  of  war. 

At  the  cannon's  foul  mouth  afar, 

Sore  afraid, 

Brown  men,  and  yellow  and  black, 

Buy  what  they  never  would  lack 

When  the  Ogre  says  "  Buy  !  " 

And  with  white  lands  as  well  it  is  war  that  we 

wage. 

Let  them  die  !  [age 

Their  trade  must  be  shattered  to  naught  in  this 
B.  c 


34  THE  COTTON  MILL 

Of  the  dollar  supreme. 

We  must  conquer.     Our  dream 

Is  a  beggared  world  at  our  feet. 

So  we  draw  up  the  armies  of  trade 

And  invade, 

With  the  children  in   front,   to   fall   first,    as 

is  meet — 

Children  of  mill  and  of  sweat  shop  and  mine — 
And  behind  them  the  women  stand, 
Jaded  and  wan,  in  line  ; 
Then  come  the  hosts  of  the  diggers  and  builders, 

artisans,  craftsmen  and  all. 
It  is  fine  ! 
It  is  grand  ! 
Let  them  fall! 
We  are  safe  in  the  rear,  with  the  loot  in  our 

hand. 

And  you,  makers  of  laws  ! 

Who  are  true  to  the  gold-bag's  cause — 

Who  will  not  interfere — 

To  whom  commerce  alone  is  dear, 

And  who  pay  any  price — 

Child's  life,  or  woman's,  or  man's — 

For  its  plans — 

Makers  of  devil's  laws,  breakers  of  God's, 

Open  your  eyes  ! 

See  what  it  means  to  succeed  ! 

Confess  once  for  all  that  you  worship  the  Ogre 

of  Greed. 
And  then 
Turn    again  ! 
For  know,  there  are  scorpions'  rods 


THE   ESCUTCHEON  35 

Of  remorse,  and  dishonour,  and  shame, 

In  the  wake  of  his  name. 

Ogre  dread  ! 

Send  him  and  his  slavery  back  to  the  dead  ! 

The  Stoker 

A  TOW  and  then  a  stoker,  come  up  to  breathe 

JL II  between  decks,  glances  under  the  canvas 
awning  at  us  as  we  yawn  over  our  novels 
in  the  long  row  of  steamer-chairs  aligned 
on  the  leeward  side  of  the  upper  deck. 

I  wonder  what  he  thinks  when  he  sees  us. 

Kind,  good  stoker,  why  do  you  not  come  and 
sit  in  my  chair  and  make  me  stoke  in  your 
stead  for  a  while  ? 

How  good  God  is  to  give  us  first  cabin  passages 
through  life  ! 

And  how  nice  of  people  to  make  ships  for  us 
and  provide  us  with  a  good  table  d'-hote  and 
comfortable  beds  and  everything  ready 
just  when  it  is  wanted. 

And  how  fortunate  for  us  it  is  that  the  world's 
hold  is  full  of  stokers  who  ask  no  questions 
and  have  no  sense  of  humour  ! 

The  Escutcheon 

POUNCE  on  the  innocent,  Powers-that-be  ! 
Live  up  to  your  coats-of-arms — 
Vulture  or  beast  of  prey — 
Whatever  is  cruel  and  harms, 
And  loves  to  torture  and  slay — 
Your  symbol  and  brand. 


36  CORONAL 

Though  the  soft  lie  drop  from  your  lips,  on  your 

shields  we  see 
The  lust  of  your  heart's  desire  as  it  guides  your 

hand. 

But  the  brutes  are  brave  and  will  fight 
With  the  best  of  their  breed  ; 
While  ye,  ye  nations,  have  goodly  heed 
To  cringe  to  the  men  of  might 
And  harry  the  weak. 
All  your  courage  of  old — 
All  the  strength  that  ye  used  to  wreak — 
Ye  have  lost  in  your  search  of  the  ends  of  the 

earth  for  gold. 

But  now  that  ye  are  combined 
In  imperial  sway, 
Let  your  holy  alliance  find 
An  escutcheon  new  that  will  fit  this  ultimate 

day. 

Makers  of  money  and  empire,  why  not  assume 
The  good  old  Medici  arms  of  the  Golden  Balls  ? 
Dig  them  reverently  up  from  the  tomb, 
And  hang  their  eloquent  sign  from  your  outer 

walls. 
Leave  their  sins  to  the  beasts — let  us  answer  for 

ours. 
All  hail  to  the  arms  of  the  Pawnbroking  Powers. 

Coronal 

LO,  the  peoples, — all  of  them — 
Form  our  Planet's  diadem, — 
Men  and  women,  hand  in  hand, 
Circling,  linking  land  to  land. 


TO   ST.    FRANCIS  OF   ASSISI     37 

Like  a  garland  round  her  head, 
See  them,  yellow,  white  and  red, — 
Sombre-hued  and  fair  and  dun, — 
As  she  dances  round  the  sun. 

Pale  or  dusky  though  they  be, 
Yet  she  flaunts  them  equally, — 
Proud  of  all  of  them, — afraid 
Lest  a  single  blossom  fade. 

Flowers,  twine  in  friendship  true  ! 
Buds  be  plenty,  briars  few  ! 
So  the  wreath  that  now  adorns 
Ne'er  becomes  her  crown  of  thorns. 

Beatus  Ille 

HAPPY  the  man,   who,   probing  what  is 
meant 

By  the  vague  gnawing  of  his  discontent, 
Traces  it  back  to  discontent  with  self, 
And  then  stops  cursing  his  environment. 

To  St.  Francis  of  Assist 

DEAR  Francis,  did  Assisi's  burghers  frown 
And  did  the  women  look  askance  and 
chide 

Because  thou  tookest  for  thy  chosen  bride 
Lorn  Poverty,  thrice-shunned  of  all  the  town  ? 
The  hard-earned  wealth  the  ages  handed  down 
Was  it  thy  pleasure  thus  to  thrust  aside  ? 
What  wonder  then  that  all  the  world  deride 
To  see  thee  wedded  in  a  beggar's  gown  ? 


38       THE  SCHOOL  OF  RICHES 

Little  they  recked  that  from  thine  emptied  life 

Giotto  and  Cimabue  would  draw  the  power 

To  bring  forth  Art,  nor  that  thy  hymns  when 

rife 

Would  sow  the  seed  of  Dante  Vsplendid  flower. 
Nay,  Poverty,  I  wot  that  never  wife 
Brought  to  her  own  true  lord     ich  priceless 
dower  ! 


The  School  of  Riches 

I 

BLESSED  are  the  poor  who  know  the 
emptiness  of  riches. 

The  poor  are  no  better  than  the  rich. 

It  is  the  poor  in  spirit — those  who  do  not  desire 
riches  (those  who  have  passed  beyond 
riches,  not  those  who  are  yet  below  them) 
— who  are  better  than  the  rich. 

We  are  all  in  the  same  school  of  the  Vanity  of 
Riches,  and  the  rich  are  in  the  senior  class, 
the  class  of  experience,  and  will  perhaps  be 
the  first  to  be  graduated. 

Some  day  we  shall  all  take  the  degree  of  Con- 
tempt for  Riches. 

Blessed  are  the  poor  who  know  without  experi- 
ence the  vanity  of  riches,  for  they  shall 
take  the  degree  cum  maxima  laude. 

II 

Methought  I  heard  God  and  Satan  talking  of  me 
as  once  they  talked  of  Job. 


LOOK  SHARP  39 

And  Satan  said  :  "  I  am  tired  of  all  these 
ancient  forms  of  torture.  The  wri things  of 
the  prisoner  under  the  lash  weary  me.  The 
shrieks  of  the  captive  in  Central  Africa  as 
he  feels  the  slow  inevitable  fire  make  me 
yawn.  All  these  old  fashioned  sufferings 
have  become  maddening  in  their  monotony. 
When  I  was  young,  how  I  revelled  in  these 
joys,  but  now,  alas,  those  days  have  passed 
away.  What  new  punishment  can  I  invent 
for  this  man  ?  " 

And  God  said  :  "  What  hath  he  done  to  deserve 
punishment  ?  " 

And  Satan  answered  and  said  :  "  He  prayed 
continually  for  riches  and  pleasures  and 
consideration,  and  strove  for  them  above 
all  things,  and  forgot  Thee  altogether." 

And  God  said,  "  Give  him  wealth  and  its 
honours  and  pleasures,  and  see  to  it  that 
he  find  no  way  to  escape  from  them,  and 
then  open  his  eyes  that  he  behold  what 
manner  of  things  they  be." 

And  Satan  went  forth  from  the  presence  of  God 
exulting  as  of  yore. 


Look  Sharp 

LOOK  sharp  !   thou  art  one  of  God's  eyes. 
Speak  clear,  for  His  word  thou  art. 
Be  His  finger, — act  strong  and  wise. 
Love  hard,  and  get  into  His  heart. 


40  BUDDHA 

"Not  a  Christian" 

O  you  condemn  him  once  for  all  as  "  not  a 


s 


Christian." 
What  is  your  test  of  a  Christian  ? 
I  call  Christians  those  whom  Christ  would  be 

likely  to  associate  with  if  He  came  back  to 

earth  to-day. 
Do   you   think   He  would   frequent   bishops' 

palaces  ? 
Are  you  sure  that  they  would  find  Him  quite 

orthodox, — in  short,  your  kind  of  a  Chris- 
tian ? 
Where  do  you  think  He  would  preach,  at  St. 

Paul's  or  in  Hyde  Park  ? 
Would  he  explain  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity, 

and  the  efficacy  of  infant  baptism,  and  the 

use  of  proper  vestments  at  the  Mass  ? 
How  the  poor  priests  would  huddle  these  things 

out  of  the  way,  if  they  really  saw  and 

recognized  Him  ! 

But  they  would  not  recognize  Him. 
He  would  talk  of  Scribes  and  Pharisees,  and 

Chief  Priests  and  Rulers  in  the  good  old 

way. 
And  how  long  would  you  "  Christians  "  listen  to 

Him  without  indignation  ? 

Buddha 

PASSIONLESS,  contemplative,  free  from 
desire, 

Beyond  love  and  hate,  beyond  good  and  evil, 
forever  beyond  the  pairs'of  opposites, — 


CAIN  41 

Is  this,  O  Gautama — once  so  human,  so  lov- 
able— is  this  the  true  goal  that  you  have 
reached  ? 

Is  there  no  divine  passion,  no  pure  supreme 
desire  ? 

May  I  not  choose  to  dwell  in  the  equilibrium  of 
the  opposites  rather  than  rise  above  them  ? 

If  life  and  desire  are  one,  must  I  crave  death, 
thus  still  desiring  ? 

Or  do  we  really  mean  the  same  thing,  and  is 
your  immeasurable  calm  a  more  abundant 
life? 

If  you  could  only  have  been  in  Galilee  in  those 
other  days  ! 

How  you  would  have  loved  each  other ! 

And  what  would  you  have  had  to  learn,  and 
what  to  teach  ? 

Religion 

THE    childish    mistaking    of   pictures  for 
facts,— 

The  crass  materialization  of  allegory, — 
The  infinite  capacity  of  man  for  humbugging 

himself, — 

And  underneath  it  all  the  shadowy  outline  of 
truth. 

Cain 

NAY,  flee  not  from  me.    Does  this  livid 
brand 
Stamped  on  my  brow  affright  you  ?     Fear  it 

not, 
It  marks  a  sin,  perhaps,  but  yet  a  sin 


42  CAIN 

That  had  its  root  in  kindliness  of  heart, 
Which  brought  upon  my  soul,  bent  Edenward, 
The  hatred  of  my  brother  Abel's  God. 
For  with  my  mother's  milk  I  had  sucked  in 
Eden's  sweet  memories,  and  she  told  me  much 
Of  that  glad  time  when  all  the  beasts  and  birds 
Were,  as  it  were,  her  brethren — how  it  was, 
The  Master  of  the  garden  blessed  them  all, 
And  gave  them  every  herb  and  every  tree 
To  be  to  them  for  food,  and  how  one  day 
She  plucked  the  fairest  fruit  of  all,  and  how 
The  Master  drove  them  forth,  Adam  and  Eve, 
In  anger,  and  how  first  He  slew  the  beasts 
That  looked  with  trustful  pitiful  amaze 
At  this  new  monster,  Death,  and  how  he  bound 
Their  bloody  skins  around  her  waist  and  his, 
While  both  shrank  back  in  horror.    From  the 

day 

I  first  could  understand  that  oft-told  tale, 
I  dreamt  of  Eden,  and  I  sought  to  turn 
Even  with  my  baby  hands  this  cursed  earth 
Into  another  garden.     And  I  loved 
To  till  the  soil,  and  bring  my  choicest  fruits 
And  lay  them  in  my  mother's  lap,  and  ask 
If  these  were  fair  as  Eden's  golden  yield. 
And  she  would  smile, — oh,  such  a  plaintive 

smile, — 

And  tell  me  "  Ay,"  and  kiss  me,  but  the  tears 
That  fell  upon  my  face  and  her  deep  sigh 
Said  "  Nay  "  more  clearly.     Abel  listened  too 
To  all  these  tales,  but  little  did  he  care 
For  Eden  and  its  green  luxuriant  herbs. 
Rather  he  loved  to  hear  how  the  dumb  beasts 


CAIN  43 

Came  to  the  slaughter, — how  the  skins  were 

ripped 
From  the  warm  bodies,  how  the  sharpened 

stone 
Pierced  the  soft  flesh,  and  how  the  blood  gushed 

forth. 

And  once  upon  a  time,  as  with  my  foot 

I  guided  through  the  thick  and  blackened  soil 

The  irrigating  waters,  in  the  sky 

I  saw  a  smoke  ascending,  and  I  smelt 

A  burning  stench,  and  heard  the  bleat  of  lambs. 

Then  ran  I  toward  the  place  and  through  the 

trees 

Looked  curiously.     What  was  it  that  I  saw  ? 
My  brother  Abel  holding  in  his  hands 
A  new-born  lamb  that  cried  just  like  a  child 
While  he  bent  back  its  head  and  cut  its  throat ! 
And  well-nigh  all  its  blood  poured  out  and  left 
The  trembling  body.   On  a  pile  of  stones 
Crackled  a  mighty  fire,  while  bones  and  wool 
And  bits  of  flesh  and  trickling  streams  of  blood, 
With  here  and  there  great  splashes,  made  a 

scene 
That  touched  mine  eyes  with  madness,  and  I 

felt- 
As  I  beheld  those  helpless  slaughtered  lambs, — 
The  self-same  spirit  of  blind  blood-thirstiness 
That  filled  their  murderer,  strike  into  my  soul. 
I  stooped  and  lifted  from  the  ground  a  stone 
Large  as  my  head  and  hurled  it  at  the  lad 
Before  he  saw  me.     It  felled  him  to  the  earth 
Crushing  his  back.     I  saw  his  red  life's  blood 


44  CAIN 

Mix  with  the  lamb's  upon  his  legs  and  arms, 
And  then  I  fled.  .  .  . 

If  I  had  only  guessed 
That  violence  will  not  yield  to  violence, — 
That  butchery  keeps  alive  the  butcher's  trade, 
Shedding  of  blood  the  murderer's !  Had  I  known 
That  by  my  very  deed  I  gave  assent 
To  Abel's  sin,  and  made  it  permanent, 
Forever  taking  from  myself  the  right 
Of  re-creating  Eden  !     Had  I  dreamed, 
(As  since  that  day  I  often  have  foreseen 
In  visions),  how  the  centuries  would  drag  on 
From  cruelty  to  cruelty,  with  that  sin 
Transmuted  into  custom, — slaughter-houses 
Revered  as  temples,  lines  of  butcher-priests 
Pointing  mankind  to  Moloch,  conjuring  up 
A  God  who  loves  to  hear  his  victim's  cries, — 
To  sniff  the  smell  of  blood,  and  in  the  end 
To  torture  his  own  son,  whose  followers — 
The  wolf-like  followers  of  a  lamb — should  joy 
In  burning  saints  and  prophets  at  the  stake, 
And  later  yet  in  preaching  war  and  strife, 
Bloodshed  and  tyranny  against  those  who  work 
For  peace  and  justice  !    When  I  think  of  this, 
And  how  one  moment  of  a  wider  love, 
Embracing  killed  and  killer,  in  my  heart 
Might  once  have  blotted  out  this  tale  of  guilt 
And  changed  the  current  of  the  stubborn  years, 
My  punishment  is  more  than  I  can  bear. 

But  do  not  shun  me.  Do  not  turn  away. 
Be  sorry,  for  this  hateful  brand  proclaims 
A  sin  that  was  at  worst  but  half  a  sin. 


TO   NERO  45 

To  Nero 


,  old  dog,  I  see  myself  looking  out  of 
your  big  eyes. 
e  are  volcanoes  from  the  same  subterranean 

fires, — 

Geysers  from  the  same  boiling,  invisible  sea, — 
Rays  from  the  same  eternal  sun. 
You  recognize  me,  don't  you,  brother  ?     I  read 
it  in  your  trustful  gaze. 

II 

How  many  cycles  is  it  since  we  were  all  let 

loose  like  homing  pigeons  to  find  our  way 

back  to  God  ? 
We  each  took  our  own  course  and  all  of  us, 

except  man,  have  run  into  some  cul-de-sac 

or  other. 
Poor   hop-toad   and   earth-worm,   what   ever 

allured  you  into  such  ugly  unpromising 

paths  ? 
But  I  can  understand  the  oak  tree  and  golden 

rod,   yellow  butterfly,   the   black-winged 

scarlet  tanager  and  the  cheerily  singing 

wren. 
I  almost  wonder  that  I  too  have  not  come  to  a 

standstill  in  one  of  these  pretty  by-ways, 

doomed  to  mark  time  forever  in  exquisite 

aimlessness. 
What  an  iron  will  it  must  have  been  that  kept 

me  to  the  true  road  so  long  ! 


46  TO   NERO 

III 

Centrifugal,  centripetal, — 

A  going  out,  a  coming  in, — 

A  separating,  each  for  himself,  a  gathering 
together  again,  each  for  all, — 

That  is  the  history  of  life  in  the  universe. 

First  the  selfish  plant,  then  the  animal  making 
delicious  experiments  in  mother-love,  and 
at  last  in  us,  men,  scattering  life  at  last 
promising  to  respond  for  good  and  all  to 
the  converging  forces, — 

Yet  all  of  us  alive  with  the  one  great  life,  com- 
prehending, as  it  does,  growth  and  com- 
pletion, out-breath  and  in-breath,  farewell 
and  hail. 

The  sap  rises  in  yon  tall  sugar-maple  at  the 
outer  hem  of  the  life  universal, — the  un- 
conscious life  of  the  world's  digestive 
organs,  neither  knowing  nor  thinking,  its 
nerves  rooted  low  down  in  the  cosmic 
spinal  column. 

Your  life,  old  Nero  is  higher,  the  reflex-motor 
instinctive  life  that  centres  in  the  lower 
brain  of  the  world,  knowing  but  knowing 
not  that  it  knows,  doing  but  ignorant  of 
how  it  does, — just  as  we  walk  unconsci- 
ously and  stumble  when  we  put  our  minds 
to  it,  and  use  words  unconsciously,  which 
seem  strange  when  we  repeat  them. 

And  our  man-life  is  loftier  still,  our  nerves 
communicating  with  the  great  upper  brain, 
ramifications  of  the  Eternal  Will,  and  of 
that  Will  we  are  the  offshoots. 


TO   NERO  47 

IV 

How  the  good  old  mastiff  longs  to  answer  me  ! 
See  it  in  his  eyes  and  hear  it  in  his  whine  ! 

Alas,  poor  Nero,  it  is  too  late  now. 

In  the  old  plastic  days  your  Adam  gave  over 
his  mouth  to  gluttony  and  strife,  and  rele- 
gated all  signs  of  sympathy  to  his  tail,  and 
hence  his  brain  stood  still. 

He  preferred  indulgence  by  himself  to  socia- 
bility, and  everlasting  loneliness,  perpetual 
solitary  confinement  in  self,  was  his  reward. 

V 

O  desire,  creator, 

Creator  reft  in  twain, — self-desire  and  yearning 

for  others, — 

The  self-god  triumphing  in  the  beast  of  prey, — 
The  social  God  in  man  who  is  his  brother's 

keeper  ! 

For  the  social  yearning  it  was  that  created  man. 
Man  longed  to  commune  with  his  fellows,  and 

shaped  his  mouth  to  speech  and  his  brain 

to  thought. 
It  was  because  be  cared  more  for  communion 

than  for  food  or  fight,  and  honoured  his 

tongue  above  his  teeth,  that  he  became  man. 

VI 

And  the  social  God  is  still  at  work  creating. 

His  spark  is  kindled  in  the  breast  of  man,  and 
we  do  not  yet  know  what  we  shall  be. 

We  are  still  on  the  main  highway ;  we  have 
successfully  threaded  the  labyrinth  thus 
far  ;  we  have  a  future  before  us. 


48  TO   NERO 

Shall  we  escape  the  blind  alleys  ? 

Shall  we  have  nerve  to  stick  to  the  narrow  path, 
turning  neither  to  the  right  hand  nor  to  the 
left? 

Shall  we  succumb  to  the  attraction  neither  of 
gay  feathers  nor  soft  music,  nor  to  the  long- 
ing to  fly  in  the  heavens  above  nor  to 
burrow  in  the  earth  beneath,  nor  to  swim 
in  the  water  under  the  earth  ? 

Shall  we  advance  with  confident  unswerving 
instinct,  knowing  that  the  Overman,  when 
he  comes,  will  be  born  of  the  social  yearn- 
ing ? 

VII 

And  yet,  Nero,  I  will  not  boast  that  I  am  human 

and  a  man  in  your  presence,  for  all  life 

must  rise  together. 
Such  epithets  are  too  narrow  for  me  ;  they  are 

mere  party-terms  and  faction-labels. 
I  will  have  none  of  them. 
I  will  be  nothing  narrower  than  a  neighbour 

and  a  brother. 
You  are  a  neighbour  and  brother,  and  how  do 

I  know  that  you  are  not  human  and  a 

man  ? 

I  am  persuaded  that  you  have  a  future  too. 
We  are  all  arrows  shot  at  a  mark  at  a  venture. 
Do  you  ask  what  blunderer  with  misty  eye  and 

palsied  arm  sent  you  thus  aimlessly  through 

space  ? 
Patience  !  It  was  no  blunderer,  and  we  shall  all 

arrive. 


APRIL  49 

April 

>EE  the  apple-orchard 


S] 


Bathing  head  and  shoulders 
In  the  dazzling  pea-green 
Rising-tide  of  April ; 
While  an  ancient  pear  tree 
In  the  kitchen  garden 
Spreads  the  rugged  outline 
Of  its  jet-black  branches 
Underneath  a  drifted 
Mass  of  snowy  blossoms. 
Tinted  is  the  herbage 
With  unnumbered  violets. 
Tiny  sky-blue  butterflies 
Like  uprooted  flowrets 
Flirt  among  the  sunbeams. 
Hickory-tips  are  bursting 
Into  clustering  parachutes. 
On  the  white-oak  saplings 
Pink  and  folded  leaflets 
Now  uncurl  their  tendrils 
Like  the  opening  fingers 
Of  soft  new-born  babies. 
Listen,  from  the  marshes 
Multitudinous  frog  notes 
Ringing  out  metallic 
Like  the  ghosts  of  sleigh-bells  ; 
While  a  red-winged  blackbird, 
Eager  to  be  mating, 
From  a  bare  twig  bugles, 
"  O-kal-ee,— it's  April !  " 


50  SPRING    THOUGHTS 

Spring  Thoughts 

I 

THE  leaves  are  not  out  yet  upon  the  moun- 
tain, but  the  red  promise  of  them 
begins  to  tinge  its  grey  flank. 

And  so  my  heart  flushes  with  the  springtide, 
and  the  robins  and  blue-birds  come  back  to 
me  also  from  the  South. 

For  I  am  part  and  parcel  of  it  all. 

There  is  no  feeling  in  bird  or  beast  or  insect,  in 
bud  or  tendril,  which  has  not  its  counter- 
part in  me. 

I  am  as  bold  as  the  bear  emerging  lean  and 
famished  from  his  winter  dormitory. 

I  tremble  at  the  sound  of  the  crackling  branch 
with  the  squirrel  and  rabbit,  as  they  prick 
up  their  ears  and  listen  with  ear  and  eye 
and  tail. 

The  snake  and  the  toad  hop  and  glide  within 
me,  though  I  would  fain  deny  them. 

I  am  more  natural  than  the  nature  around  me, 
for  the  wolf  and  the  panther  have  left  these 
woods,  but  they  still  have  their  lair  in  my 
heart,  and  no  advance  of  civilisation  win 
ever  drive  them  forth  from  that  fastness. 

I  sleep  and  dream  with  the  stolid  forest  trees, 
lulled  by  the  south-west  wind. 

I  feel  the  sap  rising  in  me,  and  I  wake  into 
ardent  blossoms. 

I  struggle  for  air  and  sunlight  with  them  all, 

though  we  look  so  innocent  and  peaceful. 
Every  note  in  the  scale  of  creation  from  heaven 


SPRING  THOUGHTS  51 

to  hell  rouses  to  vibration  some  sympa- 
thetic chord  within  me. 

I  cannot  escape  a  single  experience  of  the  uni- 
verse, if  I  would. 

My  cowardice  is  as  futile  as  all  cowardice  is 
futile. 

I  live  with  all  the  life  I  see. 

The  spring  and  summer  are  mine,  and  the  fall 
and  winter  will  just  as  surely  be  mine,  and 
after  them  the  following  spring-time. 

I  must  have  all — all. 

My  lot  must  be  completely  bound  up  with  the 
common  lot. 

I  claim  no  exclusive  privilege. 

I  will  live  with  them  and  I  will  die  with  them 
and  with  them  shall  I  rise  from  the  dead. 

Nature  has  not  slighted  me  by  exempting  me 
from  any  of  her  laws. 

II 

The  willows  are  signalling  with  light  green 

streamers  the   arrival   of  Spring  in   the 

offing. 
The  soft  maples  have  hoisted  the  red  standard 

which  in  their  code  has  the  same  meaning. 
Sail  in  with  swelling  sails,  O  ship  of  life,  for  the 

ice  has  long  since  ebbed  out  of  the  harbour. 
Coming  and  going  every  year,  O  ship,  bringing 

the  living  and  taking  away  the  dead,  tell 

me,  where  is  the  other  port  at  the  end  of 

your  annual  journey  ? 
Do  you  bring  them  to  life  too,  and  take  away 

their  dead  ? 


52  SPRING  THOUGHTS 

On  the  deep,  lonely  sea  is  your  cargo  somehow 

changed  and  transformed  ? 
I  half  guess  the  secret  of  your  voyage. 
Tell  me,  is  it  not  true  that  death  is  only  the 

seamy  side  of  birth  ? 

Ill 
The  pale-green  finger-tips  of  the  sombre  firs 

point  in  all  directions  at  the  wonders  of 

April. 
In  the  woods  the  warm  days  have  lured  forth 

the  tender  leaves  on  the  young  trees,  and 

undergrowth,    but   the   lofty   oaks   show 

hardly  a  sign  of  life  as  yet. 
A  greenish  mist  of  leaves  is  rising  sun-lit  from 

the  ground,  but  it  reaches  only  half  way 

up  their  towering  trunks. 
New   yellow   sprouts   stand   upright    on    the 

diminutive  pines  like  candles  on  a  Christ- 
mas-tree. 
Each  sprout,  each  needle,  each  leaf,  grows  forth 

independently,  obeying  only  the  life  within. 
O  woods, — 

Untamed,  unheeding  woods, — 
Ungoverned,  unlicensed,  unpermitted, — 
Asking  no  one's  leave  to  fulfil  your  destiny  ! 
In  vain  I  peer  and  search  beneath  your  branches 

for  a  glimpse  of  the  State. 
Here  at  least  the  State  is  for  once  well  out  of 

sight. 
Before  your  leafy  wands  the  giant  Bogey  of  the 

ages  has  vanished  with  all  his  spectral  train 

of  rights  divine. 


SPRING  THOUGHTS  53 

The  only  divine  rights  here  are  those  of  beech 
and  chestnut, — but  that  I  am  here  too 
with  the  rights  divine  of  Man. 

I  pledge  my  allegiance  with  the  forest  trees. 

Their  oath  is  my  oath  and  their  State  is  my 
State. 

We  are  the  true  realists  and  deal  only  with 
facts. 

We  are  not  like  the  sentimentalists  in  town 
with  their  big  books,  pretending  that  they 
are  practical  while  they  are  lost  in  a  maze 
of  Laws  and  Policies  and  Patriotisms  and 
Precedents  and  countless  other  shadowy 
sentiments  duly  capitalized. 

We  know  what  they  have  forgotten,  that  the 
one  ultimate  fact  is  life. 

When  the  leaves  of  the  oak  are  ruled  by  a 
majority  rather  than  by  the  inner  life  of 
the  tree,  then,  and  not  till  then,  will  I 
believe  in  majorities. 


IV 

Robin,  robin,  here  you  are  once  more. 
Why  did  you  desert  us  so  early  last  Autumn  ? 
There  were  still  plenty  enough  of  seeds  and 

insects. 

Why  did  you  not  stay  with  us  longer  ? 
The  robin  answers  not,  but  he  cocks  his  head 

as  if  to  say  : 
"  What  makes  you  too  fly  away  from  the  old 

and  tried  to  the  new  and  unexplored  ?  " 


54  SPRING  THOUGHTS 


I  have  looked  down  upon  the  earth  from  afar. 

I  have  noted  its  slow  and  regular  respiration, 
the  summer  rising  and  falling  like  the 
bosom  of  a  sleeping  child,  rolling  its  green 
flood  alternately  north  and  south  and  ebb- 
ing back  again  before  the  advancing  snows. 

I  have  watched  the  flight  of  birds  up  and  down 
the  throbbing  lands  as  it  keeps  time  with 
the  swelling,  sinking  breath. 

Whence  conies  the  tireless,  imperative  push, 
push,  push,  behind  it  all  ? 

I  cannot  tell  you  but  I  feel  it  in  my  heart. 

I  am  like  the  bud  ;  I  am  conscious  of  a  touch 
of  mysterious  life  at  the  very  centre  of  me 
that  sets  all  the  rest  a-bursting. 

Push,  push,  push, — the  old  hardened  envelopes 
of  custom  and  habit  on  the  outside  which 
have  so  long  restrained  me  yield  at  last 
and  fall  withering  to  the  ground. 

The  old  kernel  swells  outward  and  in  turn  falls 
off  likewise. 

And  yet  forever  streams  into  the  centre  a 
steady  flow  of  life,  welling  up  from  the 
infinite  source  that  fills  the  bird  and  flower. 

Push,  push,  push. 

As  the  word  of  the  Lord  came  to  Abram,  as  it 
came  to  Israel  and  Moses,  as  it  comes  year 
after  year  to  the  robin,  so  also  it  comes  to 
me,  saying, 

"  Get  thee  out  of  thy  country  and  from  thy 
kindred  and  from  thy  father's  house,  unto 
a  land  that  I  will  show  thee."  . 


SPRING  THOUGHTS  55 

VI 

May  is  almost  over  and  the  long  rows  of  locusts 
on  the  winding  avenue  are  pale  with  blos- 
soms, which  are  now  beginning  to  fall  like 
snow  on  the  carriage-way. 

The  air  is  heavy  with  their  perfume  and  the 
full  clusters  buzz  with  innumerable  insects. 

It  is  prayer-meeting  night  and  the  church-bells 
are  ringing  their  beautiful  call  once  again 
from  the  village. 

I  think  of  the  sleepy,  uncomfortable  congrega- 
tion, only  quarter  filling  the  chapel, — of 
the  general  funereal  pitch  of  the  service, — 
of  the  atmosphere  of  dismal  duty. 

The  hum  of  the  bees  is  as  fresh  as  it  was  in 
Eden  ; — why  then  has  the  message  of  the 
bells  lost  its  freshness  ? 

The  locust-blooms  are  as  new-inspired  to-day 
as  they  were  on  the  third  day  of  Creation. 

Why  is  it  that  the  beautiful  bells  mean  less  every 
year  ? 

VII 

I  see  a  dead  beetle  in  the  road  and  the  ants  are 
devouring  it  with  great  haste. 

I  wonder  what  enemy  cut  short  its  life. 

With  all  my  fellow-feeling  for  this  Spring- 
world,  surely  there  is  something  exotic  in 
my  soul,  and  it  did  not  all  grow  up  from 
this  hard-hearted  soil. 

Its  tap-root  sucks  up  its  compassion  from  some 
warmer,  softer  loam,  and  something 


56  SPRING  THOUGHTS 

foreign  to  this  inter-struggling  world  has 
taught  it  to  be  less  pitiless. 

Poor  beetle,  whose  voice  is  it  that  the  busy 
voracious  ants  obey  ? 

Wonderful  little  inlet  into  which  the  ocean  of 
life  once  surged,  now  left  high  and  dry  but 
still  bearing  the  shape  into  which  the  great 
water  fashioned  you  ! 

How  the  persistent  waves  of  the  sea  of  life  con- 
tinually assault  the  shores  of  matter, 
working  their  way  into  it  at  every  nook 
and  cranny,  and  then  running  inevitably 
out,  leaving  the  beach  strewn  with  empty 
shells  like  this  poor  beetle-case  ! 

But  the  sea  is  still  full  of  water  and  not  a  drop 
that  was  here  but  is  there,  rising  and 
falling  with  the  living  tide. 

VIII 

Coffined  too  long  in  my  body,  I  spring  forth  at 

last  unaccountably  free. 
I  make  my  choice  to  live  outside,  even  on  the 

advancing  outskirts  of  my  subtle  influence. 
All  these  years  I  have  been  content  to  go  to  the 

bottom  like  a  stone  and  lie  at  rest  in  the 

soft  mud. 

Now  I  choose  to  spread  out  forever  on  the  sur- 
face like  the  widening  undulating  circles. 
I  did  not  know  that  I  could  walk  on  the  water, 

— but  I  can. 
I  tried  it  at  first  fearsomely  as  if  it  were  thin 

black  ice  which  would  give  way  with  my 

weight, — but  it  bears. 


SPRING  THOUGHTS  57 

Oh,  the  freedom  of  it,  rising  thus  as  it  were 
from  the  dead, — 

Forsaking  loneliness,  ambition  and  pride, — 

Swelling  out  into  fresh  air,  buoyancy,  health 
and  love, — 

Finding  no  frontier  anywhere, — 

Sensible  of  infinite,  wasteful  regions  of  elbow- 
room, — 

Breathing  in  space  and  leaving  it  behind, — 

The  universe  passing  through  me  as  the  ocean 
passes  through  the  gills  of  a  fish. 

IX 

I  leave  my  metropolis  on  all  the  railways  at 
once  with  a  free  pass  which  no  one  need 
be  ashamed  of  in  my  pocket. 

My  soul  leaps  forth  north,  south,  east,  west  by 
every  quivering  wire. 

Before  long  I  shall  hold  the  whole  world  in  a 
net. 

My  nerves  are  the  central  office  of  a  great  tele- 
phone company. 

In  every  town  and  hamlet  there  will  be  a 
branch  office  and  an  operator  to  see  and 
hear  from  me,  responsive  to  my  every 
message. 

It  will  be  "  hello,  hello  "  to  all  the  world  with 
the  stars  and  planets  thrown  in,  but  there 
will  be  no  "  good-bye." 

I  shall  speak  to  them  all  at  once  and  they  will 
speak  to  me  all  at  once,  but  there  will  be 
no  confusion. 


58  SPRING  THOUGHTS 

X 

Now  I  am  free  with  the  ultimate  freedom  of  all 
things. 

For  the  first  time  I  am  at  large  and  find  myself 
in  my  true  element. 

I  was  meant  to  fly ;  I  was  half  conscious  of  it 
even  when  I  lay  in  the  befouled  nest. 

I  know  now  how  the  fledgeling  feels,  when  the 
mother-bird  hides  all  day  in  the  sugar- 
maple  and  peeps  out  to  see  if  he  will  dare 
to  follow. 

He  is  very  hungry,  he  chirps  piteously,  he  does 
not  know  what  has  become  of  his  hundred 
meals  a  day  and  of  the  familiar  warmth 
which  was  as  a  part  of  himself. 

He  listens  in  vain  for  the  well-known  cluck 
which  means  "  Here's  a  worm  for  you." 

When  at  length  he  is  well-nigh  desperate,  some- 
thing strange  moves  within  him  for  it  is 
his  Spring-time. 

He  hops  out  of  the  nest,  he  knows  not  why  ;  he 
flutters  his  wings,  he  has  faith,  he  flies,  he 
is  born  again. 

Oh,  life,  life,  that  other  existence  in  the  old 
nest  was  not  life. 

I  am  delirious  with  new-found  joy. 

O  mother-bird,  over  there  in  the  thick  of  the 
maple-tree,  are  you  not  as  happy  as  I  am  ? 

XI 

The  creative  movement  is  ecstasy. 

You  cannot  have  creation  without  ecstasy. 


IN   THE   GARDEN  59 

Rose-bud  red  and  robin-egg  blue  and  rosy 
blue-eyed  baby  all  tell  the  same  story  of 
ecstasy. 

All  life  is  conceived  in  ecstasy. 

Fatherhood  and  motherhood  are  ecstasy. 

God,  the  Father-Mother-Creator,  is  ecstasy. 

And  the  return  to  God  is  ecstasy. 


Worship 

BOW  before  God  in  prone  humility, 
Till  thou  remember  that  He  lives  in 

thee; 
Then  lift  thy  head  superb  among  the  free. 


In  the  Garden 

I  SPIED  beside  the  garden  bed 
A  tiny  lass  of  ours, 

Who  stopped  and  bent  her  sunny  head 
Above  the  red  June  flowers. 

Pushing  the  leaves  and  thorns  apart 

She  singled  out  a  rose, 
And  in  its  inmost  crimson  heart, 

Enraptured,  plunged  her  nose. 

"  O  dear,  dear  rose,  come,  tell  me  true,- 
Come,  tell  me  true,"  said  she, 

"  If  I  smell  just  as  sweet  to  you*"- 
As  you  smell  sweet  to  me  !  " 


60  WINE   OF   ETERNITY 

Wine  of  Eternity 

GOD  took  a  vial  from  its  place, 
His  throne  a  span  beyond, 
And  spilled  into  a  chalice-glass 

Its  drops  of  diamond, 
Which  sparkled  in  the  light  of  His  face 
Like  brilliants  of  Golcond. 

These  be  the  waters  of  To-day, 

Limpid  and  live  and  clear. 
He  put  the  empty  vial  away, 

And  chose  another  near, 
Whose  liquor  was  a  yellow-grey, 

Amber  and  dead  and  sere. 

Drawn  from  the  Past's  dull  stagnant  lake, 
This  draught  He  poured  likewise. 

To  watch  the  crystal  wax  opaque 
Brought  brine  into  mine  eyes, 

Like  Asiel,  when  he  spied  the  snake 
Glide  into  Paradise. 

Now  still  another  addeth  He — 

A  vial  with  darkness  kissed, 
Like  fluid-night — the  Time-to-be — 

Of  jet  and  amethyst — 
And  now  He  stirreth  all  the  three 

Into  a  purple  mist. 

Then  in  a  tall  translucent  urn 

Seraphs  decant  the  bowl, 
Like  wine  upon  the  lees,  to  turn 


YESTERDAY  61 

The  vintage  of  the  soul, 
And  as  they  pour,  the  liquids  churn 
And  seethe  and  heave  and  roll. 

They  set  it  on  a  step  below — 

This  urn  of  mystery — 
And  on  it  write  as  angels  do, 

"  Wine  of  Eternity," 
So  that  the  tiniest  cherubs  know 

What  dangerous  drink  it  be. 

Ah,  will  it  turn  to  amber  pale, 

A  heartsick  monochrome  ? 
Or  will  the  amethyst  entail 

A  violaceous  doom  ? 
Nay,  crystal  Now,  prevail,  prevail, 

And  clarify  the  gloom  ! 

Yesterday 

TO-DAY  and  To-morrow  will  change,  but 
Yesterday  changes  never. 
To-day  and  To-morrow  die,  but  Yesterday  lives 
forever. 

And  little  they  love  each  other,  this  trinity  of 

the  ages, 
And  frightful  is  the  war  which  each  with  the 

other  wages. 

To-day  pursues  To-morrow  through  every  kind 

of  weather, 
With  Yesterday  at  his  heels,  who  swallows  them 

both  together. 


62  MOODS 

To-day  is  ever  thin,   and  To-morrow  grows 

thinner  and  thinner. 
But  Yesterday  waxes  fat  with  his  one  eternal 

dinner. 

Though  time  seems  long  indeed  and  the  uni- 
verse stout  and  staunch, 

Will  Yesterday  gulf  it  all  in  his  huge  omnivor- 
ous paunch  ? 


Moods 

I 

THERE  is  nothing  but  moods. 
Love  underlies  creation  and  love  is  a 

mood. 

Thought  shares  the  burden  with  love,   and 

thought  springs  from  axiom  and   premiss, 

and  axiom  and  premiss  are  moods. 

Even  mathematics  rests  on  the  number  One, 

and  One,  the  idea  of  unity,  is  a  mood, 

which  has  nothing  in  nature  to  answer  to 

it,  for  all  things  are  complex  and  compound. 

It  is  moods  then  that  bear  the  universe  on  their 

back. 
There  is  nothing  but  moods. 

II 

I  am  tired  of  thinking. 

All  things  are  true  and  so  are  their  opposites. 
I  believe  every  philosophy,  but  not  that  it 
contains  all. 


MOODS  63 

I  adopt  all  religions,  while  I  remain  the  uni- 
versal heretic. 

I  agree  with  all  men,  but  I  see  the  other  side 
which  they  do  not  see. 

I  sympathise  with  every  fad  and  also  with  the 
blind  hater  of  fads. 

But  what  a  weary  vacuity  this  breadth  of  mine 
is  ! 

I  could  find  it  in  me  to  envy  the  chipmunk  in 
yon  narrow  crack  in  the  locust  tree,  with 
just  room  enough  to  turn  a  somersault  and 
pop  his  head  out  before  his  tail  is  fairly  in, 
and  with  no  object  in  life  but  nuts  and 
birds'  eggs. 

O  chipmunk,  what  is  the  wisdom  of  the  worlds 
compared  with  yours  ? 

What  need  have  you  of  the  human  philosopher 
hugging  his  favourite  horn  of  the  eternal 
dilemma  ? 

Surely  you  are  the  prince  of  philosophers, 
cracking  your  history  nut  to  a  purpose 
while  I  split  my  head  in  vain. 


Ill 

The  world-riddle  is  heavy  upon  me  to-night. 
O  Sphinx,  why  do  you  stop  me  on  the  road  and 

let  the  others  pass  by  ? 
Why  do  you  mock  my  impotent  brain  and  tear 

my  fevered  heart  asunder  ? 
How  often  I  have  spent  the  whole  evening  over 

some  idle  mechanical  puzzle, — 


64  MOODS 

Cursing  my  stupidity  for  not  being  able  to  solve 

it,— 
Cursing  my  infatuation  for  not  being  able  to 

give  it  up, — 
Stretched  and  racked  upon  the  horrible  little 

instrument  of  torture. 
This  is  life. 
The  sphinx  himself  can  furnish  no  formula  by 

way  of  solution. 
Perhaps  if  I  grow  into  him  and  he  into  me,  I 

may  feel  at  last  the  answer  of  peace  at  the 

roots  of  my  being. 
But  meanwhile  would  that  I  could  throw  away 

the  toy,  put  out  the  lamp,  and  go  to  bed  ! 


IV 

A  plump  little  phebe-bird  is  perched  on  the 
lowest  branch  of  the  pear  tree,  with  her 
head  cocked  on  one  side,  watching  the 
waving  sea  of  grass  for  her  prey. 

Ever  and  anon  she  darts  down  and  comes  back 
in  an  instant  to  the  same  twig  with  a  moth, 
caught  on  the  wing,  in  her  bill. 

A  great  dragon-fly  sails  slowly  by,  and  the  tiny 
bird  makes  a  dash  for  it,  but,  thinking 
better  of  it,  she  hovers  in  the  air  a  few 
inches  from  the  insect,  following  its  flight. 

Then  she  turns  disconcerted  and  flies  back  to 
her  post,  while  the  dragon-fly  sails  proudly 
on. 

I  was  not  as  wise  as  the  phebe-bird. 


MOODS  65 

When  I  saw  the  universe  buzzing  by,  I  pounced 
upon  it  and  we  are  still  grappling  with  each 
other. 

V 

I  lie  in  bed  in  the  morning,  just  awake  enough 
to  be  thankful  that  it  is  Sunday  and  that 
breakfast  is  to  be  an  hour  later  than  usual, 
but  still  I  have  a  feeling  that  it  must  be 
time  to  get  up. 

I  take  my  watch  from  the  chair  by  the  bedside 
and  look  at  it. 

But  no.  I  have  not  really  moved.  I  was 
dreaming  and  I  saw  the  dial  through 
closed  eyelids. 

Can  I  ever  make  up  my  mind  to  get  out  of  bed  ? 

No  ;   surely  never. 

But  all  of  a  sudden  I  find  myself  throwing  back 
the  covers  and  sitting  up,  and  now  the 
hard-wood  floor  near  the  rug  feels  smooth 
and  cold  to  my  feet  as  I  seek  my  slippers. 

What  was  it  that  at  last  drove  me  out  of  bed  ? 

Who  fixed  the  moment  of  my  rising  and  made 
me  doubt  whether  I  am  man  or  automa- 
ton ? 

VI 

I  caught  an  unexpected  sidelong  glimpse  of  my 
right  foot  and  ankle  as  I  got  out  of  my  tub 
this  morning,  and  it  startled  me  as  if  I  had 
met  a  faun  or  centaur  in  the  woods. 

How  does  it  happen, — strange,  inexplicable 
B.  E 


66  MOODS 

animals  that  we  are, — that  we  ever  grow 

accustomed  to  the  sight  of  each  other  ? 
We    are    creatures    as    extraordinary    as    the 

grotesque  shapes  in  the  sea  or  under  the 

flat  stones  in  the  pasture. 
How  natural  and  inevitable  in  comparison  is  an 

oak  or  a  chestnut-tree. 
If  the  blind  man  of  Bethsaida  had  only  seen 

correctly  ! 

If  men  were  only  more  like  trees  walking  ! 
The  trees  are  so  clean. 
They  never  spit  nor  sweat. 
They  exude  nothing  less  savoury  than  aromatic 

odours,  and  they  make  the  air  sweet  to 

leeward. 
Cut  them  open  anywhere  and  they  have  no 

ghastly  secrets  to  reveal. 

Their  death  is  full  of  dignity  and  there  is  no- 
thing revolting  in  their  decay. 
While  men  befoul  the  world,  it  is  they  that  are 

forever  cleansing  it. 
I  think  that  in  heaven  men  will  be  more  like 

the  forest  trees. 
And  if  our  animal  part  is  weird,  that  part  of  us 

which  is  not  animal  is  still  weirder. 
We  are  afraid  of  ghosts,  and  we  are  ghosts  our- 
selves. 
There  can  be  nothing  more  uncanny  than  the 

crowd  on  Broadway. 
It  is  as  fantastic  and  gruesome  as  the  wind-swept 

clouds  of  shades  in  Hades. 
It  is  enough  to  make  your  hair  stand  on  end 

and  your  voice  stick  in  your  throat. 


MOODS  67 

If  we  were  once  to  open  our  eyes,  we  should  be 

frightened  out  of  our  wits  at  the  sight  of 

our  fellow-goblins. 
I  am  surprised  at  my  courage  in  being  willing 

to  remain  in  a  room  with  you  on  a  dark 

night. 

VII 

I  met  a  man  yesterday  whom  I  had  not  seen  or 
thought  of  for  thirty  years,  and  the  appal- 
ling fact  struck  me  that  during  all  these 
weary  months  he  had  never  for  a  moment 
been  able  to  escape  from  himself. 

What  a  frightful  thing  it  is,  when  you  come  to 
think  of  it,  to  be  imprisoned  for  life  in 
yourself,  and  even  in  sleep  to  dog  your  own 
footsteps  liks  a  shadow. 

How  is  it  that  we  pray  for  an  eternity  of  this 
same  monotony,  and  do  not  long,  when  we 
rest  from  our  labours,  to  rest  also  from 
ourselves  ? 


VIII 

There  is  no  past  and  there  is  no  future,  for  who 

ever  entered  into  either  of  those  illusory 

realms  ? 

There  is  only  a  now. 
Be  not  anxious  for  the  morrow  for  there  is  no 

morrow. 
Live  in  and  for  to-day,  for  all  life  is  to-day,  and 

if  your  to-day  is  right,  all  is  well  for  ever. 


68  MOODS 

IX 

Floating,  slowly  floating  through  the  air, — 
Gliding,  now  swiftly,  over  vast  surfaces  but 

never  touching  them, — 
Walking  the  waves  and  finding  them  soft  and 

pleasant  to  the  feet,  but  preferring     to 

skim  over  them  as  the  swallow  skims, — 
I  could  swear  that  this  is  my  natural  way  of 

locomotion. 
How  often  I  dream  of  it  and  come  back  to  my 

legs  as  to  unfamiliar,  awkward  crutches ! 
What  is  our  swimming  and  diving,  our  coasting 

and  skating,  our  riding  and  cycling  and 

motoring  and  dancing,  but  a  vain  effort 

to  realize  this  dream  ? 

X 

I  am  not  really  here. 

I  am  really  up  there  somewhere. 

I  look  at  myself  with  surprise  to  see  myself 

talking  so  glibly. 
It  is  after  dinner  and  we  are  sipping  coffee  in 

the  drawing-room. 
The  company  are  gossiping  idly  and  I     am 

speaking  to  my  neighbour. 
I  talk  like  the  rest  of  them,  but  we  are  unlike, 

for  I  at  least  feel  that  I  am  not  all  here. 
I  am  up  there  somewhere,  and  my  body  with 

its  brain  is  my  tool,  which  I  gaze  upon 

and  criticise. 
There  is  that  within  me,  my  friends,  that  you 

dream  not  of. 


MOODS  69 

There  is  more  in  life  than  coffee  and  cigarettes 
and  liqueurs,  if  you  will  only  stop  chatter- 
ing long  enough  to  let  it  speak  for  itself. 

XI 

We  are  all  marionettes,  and  I  tire  sometimes 

of  the  play. 
The  comedy  of  it  does  not  amuse  me,  and  its 

tragedy  is  too  tragic. 
I  cannot  follow  the  plot  for  its  intricacy. 
The  seats  are  uncomfortable  to  painfulness, 

and  there  is  no  room  for  my  cramped 

knees  and  elbows. 
The  air  is  close  and  stifling  and  the  garish  light 

sears  my  eyes. 
I  long  for  the  last  scene  when  we  shall  drop 

the  masques  of  time  and  space  and  find 

behind  them — just  you  and  me  ! 

XII 

Yet  there  is  fascination  too  in  the  world  as  it  is. 
How  I  love  the  slap-dash,  slam-bang  of  the 

devil's  gypsy  music  ! 
Oh,  to  skim  along  without  a  soul,  to  dance 

madly,  to  let  yourself  go, — 
To  slash  yourself  with  knives,  to  set  your  teeth 

and    grasp    the    blades    exultingly    until 

they  cut  to  the  finger-bones, — 
To  be  completely  inebriated  with  the  rhythm 

of  passing  things  ! 
But  here  come  those  wretched  familiar  scruples 

again  ! 


70  MOODS 

What  pleasure  do  you  take  in  making  my  life 
miserable  ? 

Just  as  I  let  myself  out  at  a  full  run  and  con- 
fidently brace  myself  for  the  leap,  I  am 
sure  to  catch  a  glimpse  of  your  sour  dis- 
approving faces  ;  my  energy  and  resolu- 
tion melt  within  me,  my  knees  turn  to 
water  and  I  halt  in  confusion. 

I  am  forever  rebelling  against  you,  and  then 
following  you  slavishly  wherever  you 
lead. 

And  yet  I  do  not  half  believe  in  your  paradise. 

You  promise  me  a  quiet  conscience  and  you 
do  not  for  a  moment  give  it  to  me. 

I  begin  to  doubt  if  it  lies  in  your  direction. 

I  could  envy  the  thick-skinned  unscrupulous 
men  who  ride  rough-shod  whither  they 
will,  and  no  more  think  of  lying  awake 
o'  nights  than  earthquakes  or  thunder- 
storms. 

I  will  not  be  a  cowardly,  blameless  man.  There 
you  have  my  declaration  of  independence. 

And  yet, —  and  yet, — 

What  is  that  beyond  that  I  hear  ? 

The  calm  compelling  chords  of  a  new  celestial 
harmony. 

The  stars  of  music  shining  down  compassionate 
upon  the  blazing  crackling,  crashing, 
conflagration  of  sound. 

The  immortal  sisters,  heaven  and  hell,  recog- 
nising each  other,  and  only  differing  as 
the  one  is  more  mature  and  fairer  and 
wiser. 


MOODS  71 

XIII 

I  hear  my  conscience  speak.* 

Alas,  that  I  should  hear  it,  for,  just  as  to  hear 
my  heart  beat,  it  argues  disorder  and 
disease. 

Why  did  I  arrive  before  the  end  of  the  morbid 
centuries  ? 

Who  condemned  me  to  be  a  degenerate,  con- 
scientious man  ? 

Who  made  me  unfit  to  be  free  from  myself, — 
at  once  a  slave  and  a  tyrant  ? 

It  will  all  pass  away. 

Like  the  hermit-cell,  the  hair  shirt,  the  flagel- 
lation, it  will  pass. 

When  brotherhood  comes,  when  full  com- 
munion comes,  it  will  already  have  passed. 

XIV 

Posterity,  dear  children,  we  are  facing  all  this 
perplexity  and  torment  of  spirit  for  you, — 

Unravelling  the  loose  ends  of  the  mystery  for 
you, — 

Discovering  God,  finding  something  better 
than  creed  and  decalogue  for  you. 

The  growing-pains  of  the  world  have  fallen 
to  us,  but  our  joy  will  be  in  your  full 
growth  and  vigour. 

The  prisoner  in  his  cell  thinks  most  of  free- 
dom ; — 

*  These  lines  were  suggested  by  an  article  in  the 
American  Journal  of  Sociology  for  May,  1898,  by 
Professor  E.  A.  Ross. 


72  IN   THE   SADDLE 

The  starving   man   dreams   ever   of   choicest 

meats  ; — 
And  so  my  soul,  walking  alone  and  lonely, 

ceaselessly  conjures  up  fond  pictures  of 

your  reunited  world, 
Where  conscience  will  be  lost  in  rapture  and 

duty  merged  in  love. 


The  Seers 

LIKE  mountain  peaks,  the  morning  tints 
with  gold 
The  loftiest  brows  in  every  land. 

Look  in  those  eyes  of  promise,  and  behold 
The  day  at  hand. 


In  the  Saddle 

MOUNTED  on  Ahmar,  flying  at  a  mad 
run  over  the  desert, — 

The  infinite  deep  blue  sea  on  the  left  bound- 
ing the  infinite  expanse  of  ruddy  grey 
sand,  and  from  it  the  strong  north  wind 
blowing  under  the  infinite  pale  blue  sky. 

It  is  a  trinity  of  infinities,  and  we  feel  infinite 
too,  my  stallion  and  I. 

His  body  heaves  and  falls  between  my  legs 
like  a  great  bellows  that  I  am  working 
and  squeezing,  and  his  girth  creaks  and 
creaks. 


IN   THE   SADDLE  73 

I  wave  my  whip  in  the  air, — he  sees  it  from 
the  corner  of  his  red  off-eye,  but  it  has  no 
effect  on  him,  for  he  is  always  straining 
every  nerve  with  outstretched  sweating 
neck  and  wild  mane. 

I  scarcely  seem  to  move  in  the  saddle. 

How  we  enjoy  it !     I  sing  aloud  in  glee. 

Before  we  left  the  palm-groves, — the  tall  bend- 
ing palms  and  the  short  palms  buried 
up  to  their  necks  in  the  sand, — I  could 
hardly  hold  him,  and  he  would  bolt  while 
we  were  still  dangerously  entangled 
among  the  trunks. 

At  the  well  on  the  edge  of  the  desert  the  Arab 
girls  saw  us  coming,  and  they  caught  up 
their  water-jars  and  scurried  away,  as  I 
laughed  at  them  and  shouted,  "  Riglak, 
ya  bint !  " 

Now  we  see  nothing  human  except  the  white 
sunlit  minaret  by  the  sea. 

How  we  enjoy  it ! 

Alexander  rode  here,  and  Caesar,  and  Napoleon. 

Here  Augustus  and  Antony  fought  for  the  world. 

Nelson  drove  France  from  the  seas  off 
the  shore  over  there. 

But  all  that  is  trivial ;  the  one  important  fact 
is  that  here  we  are,  man  and  mount, 
merged  and  lost  in  the  wind. 

Heaven  must  be  something  like  this, — and  so 
must  hell, — 

And  between  the  two  there  is  nothing  quite 
worth  while. 


74          ON   THE   SUEZ   CANAL 

On  the  Suez  Canal 

A  STARRY  night  on  the  Suez  Canal ! 
I  am  standing  on    the  forward  deck  of 
a  tramp  steamer,  talking  with  the  voluble 
young  French  employee  of  the  canal  com- 
pany who  manages  the  searchlight. 

I  am  the  only  passenger  on  board,  and  all  the 
ship's  officers  and  crew,  not  on  duty,  are 
at  supper. 

We  two  are  in  the  shadow  behind  the  great  box 
which  belches  forth  radiance  before  us. 

The  bowsprit  and  white  rail  and  tarred  ropes 
stand  out  with  unnatural  distinctness  in 
the  glare. 

Beyond  them  the  widening  streak  of  brilliance 
silvers  the  everlasting  desert,  threaded  by 
the  straight  black  waterway. 

We  steam  slowly,  ponderously  southward,  and 
our  yawning  monster  of  light  devours  ever 
new  stretches  of  sand,  and  casts  the 
remnants  behind  him  in  the  dark. 

Now  he  unearths  a  miniature  Bedouin  en- 
campment on  the  right — two  tents  and  as 
many  camels. 

One  of  the  beasts,  tethered,  browses  on  tufts 
of  desert  herbage  like  a  live  pyramid. 

The  other  sleeps  recumbent  in  the  sand  like  a 
pyramid  fallen  in  ruins. 

The  lord  of  the  tents  comes  out  into  the  night 
to  look  at  us,  and  his  outline  has  all  the 
dignity  of  an  Abraham  or  a  Moses. 

"  How  strange  it  is,"  I  say  dreamily  to  my 


ON   THE    SUEZ   CANAL          75 

companion,  "  how  strange  it  is  to  think 
that  across  this  very  wilderness,  looking 
just  as  it  does  to-night,  the  children  of 
Israel  once  journeyed  !  " 

"  Yes,"  said  he,  "  and  yon  Arab  is  nearer  to 
Moses  than  we  are  to  him." 

"  Ah,  I  am  not  so  sure  of  that,"  I  say  to 
myself,  while  he  busies  himself  with  his 
wires. 

Are  we  really  so  unlike  Moses,  the  man  who 
with  his  mysterious  searchlight,  his  pillar 
of  fire  by  night,  led  forth  into  the  desert 
to  find  the  Promised  Land  ? 

(He  had  his  pillar  of  cloud  by  day  too,  just 
such  a  one  as  our  funnel  poured  out  into 
the  sunlight  this  afternoon.) 

Would  he  acknowledge  any  kinship  to  him- 
self, except  in  externals,  in  the  changeless 
contented  Bedouin  ? 

What  better  representative  of  our  modern 
world  could  there  be  than  this  steamer  of 
ours,  traversing  the  waste  of  the  ages  with 
its  metallic  tread,  carrying  its  stokers  and 
feasters  in  its  belly,  with  only  my  friend 
and  me  visible  beneath  the  sky  to  do  duty 
as  the  poet  and  reformer  ? 

There  they  are,  ever  at  the  prow  with  their 
electric  light,  searching  the  same  desert 
for  the  same  elusive  Promised  Land,  and 
ready  to  signal  back  on  the  very  clouds  of 
heaven  to  the  loitering  hosts  in  their  wake 
such  discoveries  as  may  reward  their 
vigils. 


76  CHRISTMAS 

Ah,  it  is  often  chilly,  hungry  work,  and  now 
and  again  they  would  fain  go  below  and 
sup  with  the  rest,  or  even  help  to  shovel 
coal  into  the  glowing  furnace. 

They  ask  with  Moses  :  "  Who  are  we  that  we 
should  bring  forth  the  children  of  Israel 
out  of  Egypt  ?  " 

They  would  gladly  encamp  in  idleness  forever 
with  the  eternal  Arab  under  the  eternal 
stars. 

But  the  God  of  Moses  is  still  in  the  desert,  and 
the  cry  of  his  children  still  comes  to  him, 
and  still  he  chooses  his  unwilling  servants 
to  renew  the  endless  journey  to  the  land 
of  milk  and  honey,  forever  receding  before 
their  searchlight  in  the  distance. 


Christmas 

ON  the  first  of  the  lengthening  days, 
When  the  years'  early  morn 
Gives  the  first  summer  pledge  with  its  rays, 
He  is  born. 

Light  has  conquered  the  Dark.     Did  we  fear 

As  the  days  shrank  and  paled 
In  the  trough  of  the  night  of  the  year, 

Light  had  failed  ? 


CHRISTMAS  77 

And  the  night's  irresistible  powers, — 

As  the  light  ebbed  away, — 
How  they  swallowed  the  minutes  and  hours, 

Day  by  day  ! 

To  the  depths  of  the  valley  of  gloom 

Had  the  sun  to  descend. 
But  to-day,  lo  !  the  cycle  of  doom 

Has  an  end ! 

For  the  promise  of  summer  reflects 

On  the  brows  of  the  sky 
All  the  glory  creation  expects  '  :\ 

By  and  bye. 

Let  the  winter  be  cruel  and  grey  ! 

We  care  little  who  know 
That  our  Christmas  hails  Easter  to-day 

O'er  the  snow  : 

And  that  Easter  brings  summer  and  heat 

And  the  sunlight  of  love, 
And  the  kingdom  of  heaven  complete 

From  above. 

Christmas  Day  with  its  greetings  and  song 

And  its  brotherly  cheer 
Is  the  earnest  of  days  which  ere  long 

Will  be  here. 

And  the  Child  whom  the  manger  reveals 

'Twixt  the  sheep  and  the  kine 
Is  the  earnest  of  Manhood  that  feels 

The  Divine. 


78  JUDGE   NOT 

Judge  Not 

I 

WHY  do  I  punish  ? 
I  may  say  that  I  do  it  to  balance  the 
misdeed,  to  reform  the  misdoer,  or  to 
improve  the  world. 

I  may  say  all  this, — but  why  do  I  punish  ? 
I  punish  because  I  crave  punishment  as  I 

crave  tobacco  or  whiskey. 
When  I  learn  to  crave  something  better,   I 
shall  cease  to  punish. 

II 

I  judge  you  ? 

Who  made  me  to  be  a  judge  over  you  ? 

What  do  I  know  about  you  ? 

What  do  I  know  about  myself  ? 

I  sometimes  think  that  I  condemn  myself  on 

inadequate  evidence. 
Is  not  the  fact  of  being  born  a  man  or  a  woman 

an  all-sufficient  extenuating  circumstance  ? 

Ill 

Do  not  think  that  I  am  judging  you ;  I  am 
judging  myself. 

I  know  you  only  as  a  reflection  of  myself. 

All  your  worst  faults  are  flourishing  in  my  soul, 
and  it  is  only  there  that  I  can  know  them 
and  grapple  with  them. 

I  am  merely  using  you  as  a  lay-figure  to  repre- 
sent myself. 


TOWN   PICTURES  79 

I  cannot  effectually  invade  your  country. 
I  can  only  invite  you  to  inaugurate  a  campaign 
there  on  your  own  account. 

IV 

My  punishment  is  what  I  am. 

Chains,  prisons,  solitary  cells,  are  but  faint 

shadows  of  it. 

And  I  am  also  my  own  reward ; 
For  a  strain  of  heaven  too  has  somehow  worked 

itself  into  my  substance. 
I  am  the  product  of  my  own  good  and  evil. 
Why  should  I  judge  and  punish  you,  when  we 

must  all  judge  and  punish  ourselves  ? 


Town  Pictures 


1  HAVE  travelled  many  ways  to  find  the  real 
centre  of  things  human,  the  point  to 
which  mankind  converges  and  from 
which  it  depends. 

Here  on  Manhattan  Island  I  think  of  it  as 
lying  somewhere  to  the  east  in  Europe, 
but  I  have  looked  for  it  there  in  vain. 
I  could  not  put  my  hand  on  it  in  London  or 

Paris  or  Rome  or  Stamboul. 
These  cities  were  too  far  north  or  south  or  east 
or  west,  and  yet  in  passing  from  one  to 
the  other  I  never  felt  myself  at  the  true 


8o  TOWN   PICTURES 

centre  of  gravity  in  the  intermediate  fields 
and  villages. 

How  much  in  earnest  we  all  seem  to  be  on  the 
express  train  ! 

Surely  we  are  a  people  with  an  object  in  life, 
if  any  there  be. 

We  pity  the  poor  town  and  country  folk  whom 
we  see  hopelessly  adrift  along  the  way  as 
we  rush  to  the  great  capital. 

Now  we  are  approaching  the  terminus. 

There  is  bustle  and  confusion  as  we  don  our 
overcoats  and  gather  shawlstraps  and  hat- 
boxes. 

Then  the  train  stops  short,  and  we  sally  forth 
in  every  direction  ; — and  that  is  all ! 

There  is  nothing  but  aimlessness  and  restless- 
ness in  the  metropolis,  and  we  cannot  thus 
extricate  ourselves  from  the  provinces. 

And  it  is  really  so  easy,  no  matter  what  out- 
of-the-way  corner  you  inhabit. 

You  have  but  one  discovery  to  make. 

Learn  that  your  back  door  opens  on  eternity, 
and  there  you  are  in  the  very  centre  of 
things. 

The  man  who  has  eternity  in  his  garden  need 
not  worry  about  the  street  on  which  his 
house  fronts. 

II 

Here  I  am  in  the  station  lunchroom,  standing 
at  the  counter  and  eating  what  supper  I 
may  while  our  locomotive  is  drinking  at 
the  pump. 


TOWN   PICTURES  81 

I  have  my  eye  on  the  thickset,  greybearded 
conductor  perched  on  a  stool  opposite  me, 
for  I  know  that  I  am  safe  so  long  as  he 
does  not  move. 

In  his  blue  cloth  and  brass  buttons,  and  with 
the  carnation  in  his  buttonhole,  he  is  as 
dignified  as  an  admiral,  and  far  more  useful. 

He  is  talking  with  the  girl  who  waits  on  him, 
but  there  is  a  quiet  reserve  and  sense  of 
strength  beneath  the  surface  which  show 
that  he  feels  the  panting  of  his  iron  charge 
outside. 

He  and  the  girl  are  on  an  easy  footing,  as  befit 
co-operators  in  the  great  work  of  trans- 
portation. 

I  like  the  pride  and  comradeship  of  these  rail- 
way people. 

Even  the  women  who  were  washing  car-win- 
dows at  the  Grand  Central  Station  this 
afternoon  seemed  conscious  of  a  joint 
interest  in  the  whole  line  and  of  the  fact 
that  these  were  no  common  panes  of  glass. 

The  newsboy  on  the  way  up  stalked  through 
the  train  as  if  it  was  his  quarterdeck,  and 
he  was  acknowledged  by  the  conductor 
and  brakemen  as  a  man  of  consideration. 

Their  looks  seemed  to  say,  We  are  members 
one  of  another. 

A  whistle  sounds  from  the  north.  "  There's 
'  Number  Three,'  "  whispers  to  her  neigh- 
bour the  aproned  damsel  who  presides  over 
my  repast — and  she  quietly  glides  to  the 
door. 


82  TOWN   PICTURES 

I  follow  her,  fearing  unreasonably  that  my 
portmanteau  may  somehow  go  off  without 
me. 

I  am  just  in  time  to  see  the  dazzling  headlight 
of  the  Western  Express  burst  forth  from 
the  cutting  with  a  thundering  roar  like  a 
mad  monster  in  a  nightmare. 

The  bell  on  the  engine  rings  out  deafeningly, 
the  platform  fairly  shakes,  and  the  rush  of 
wind  almost  carries  away  my  hat. 

There  is  a  glimpse  of  the  glowing  faces  of  the 
engineer  and  the  fireman  at  their  volcanic 
hearth. 

The  heavy  mail  cars  and  then  the  unwieldy 
sleepers,  giving  gleams  of  electric  light  and 
upholstery,  plunge  by  us  into  the  dark- 
ness. 

On  the  last  platform  I  see  a  trainman  waving 
his  handkerchief  at  me  above  the  blood- 
shot bull's  eye  lamp  in  the  rear. 

But  no,  it  is  for  the  girl,  whom  I  had  well  nigh 
forgotten. 

She  waves  her  napkin  and  looks  smiling 
after  the  apparition  until  it  is  swallowed 
up  in  the  night  like  a  stone  in  a  black 
pool. 

Now  she  is  again  in  her  place  at  the  counter. 

In  a  half  minute  she  has  contributed  her  share 
of  sentiment  to  "  Number  Three "  and 
to  the  great  iron  system  of  which  it  forms 
a  part. 

She  has  helped  knit  together  the  numerous 
band  of  the  comrades  of  the  road. 


TOWN   PICTURES  83 

What  would  not  Wagner  have  given  could  he 
have  chained  this  dragon,  "  Number 
Three,"  with  its  rush  and  roar  and  romance 
to  his  art. 

It  is  our  turn  now  to  dash  along,  ponderous 
and  rumbling,  to  the  north. 

The  conductor  has  descended  from  his  pinnacle 
and  I  follow  him  out  to  the  train. 

I  am  proud  to  be  borne  on  my  way  by  these 
railway  workers. 

As  I  sit  in  my  seat,  looking  out  at  the  shadows 
flying  by,  I  wonder  why  we  cannot  run 
our  world  as  they  do  theirs. 

We  only  need  the  same  esprit  de  corps,  which, 
when  exalted  and  extended,  we  call  re- 
ligion. 

Is  our  orbit  less  worthy  of  it  than  the  steel  rails 
of  the  Central  Line  ? 


Ill 

Is  there  anything  on  earth  more  forbidding 
than  a  Court  House  ? 

Is  there  a  more  hopeless  sight  than  a  criminal 
court  in  session  ? 

Come  up  the  dirty,  clammy  steps  with  me. 

Ten  thousand  sorrows  have  stained  the  walls 
and  floor,  and  the  air  is  heavy  with  the 
sighs  of  a  century. 

Why  is  it  that  men's  laws  when  they  assert 
themselves  make  all  things  hideous  ? 

We  push  through  the  green-baize  doors  be- 
tween the  policemen  who  stand  on  guard. 


84  TOWN   PICTURES 

The  attendant  opens  the  gate  in  the  railing 
and  we  sit  down  among  the  members  of 
the  bar. 

The  prisoners  are  huddled  together  in  a  pen 
in  the  corner. 

We  can  only  see  them  as  they  are  brought  out 
handcuffed  one  by  one  to  plead. 

Some — a  very  few — have  ill-shapen  heads  from 
which  little  good  can  be  expected. 

They  need  the  moulding  influence  of  mothers 
and  sisters  and  wives,  or  of  guardians 
who  may  tenderly  fill  their  places. 

We,  in  our  wisdom,  lock  them  up  rather  for 
years,  and  then  turn  them  loose  again, 
far  more  dangerous  and  miserable  than 
before. 

The  other  prisoners  are  for  the  most  part  just 
like  you  and  me. 

Somehow  I  like  their  looks  much  better  than 
those  of  their  gaolers  and  prosecutors. 

All  that  our  punishing  does  for  them  is  to  de- 
grade them. 

It  does  not,  as  it  should,  expiate  and  annul 
their  crime. 

On  the  contrary,  we  despise  them,  not  for  their 
faults,  but  for  the  penalty  we  inflict. 

We  reserve  our  deepest  contempt,  not  for  the 
thief,  but  for  the  gaol-bird, — not  for  the 
contaminated  soul,  but  for  the  striped 
clothes  we  put  on  the  body. 

The  court-officers  are  now  hustling  the  wretched 
men  and  women  one  after  another  up  to 
the  bar  as  their  names  are  called. 


TOWN   PICTURES  85 

They  pass  the  limp  human  merchandise  along 
like  machines. 

The  monotonous  clerk  reads  off  the  indictments 
like  a  machine. 

The  bored,  impassive  judge  presides  over  it  all 
like  a  machine. 

For  none  of  them  are  these  hunted,  frightened 
creatures  real  human  beings. 

There  is  no  more  thought  of  brotherhood  in 
the  Court  than  there  is  in  the  wheels  and 
cogs  of  a  factory. 

It  is  a  dead,  relentless  mill. 

The  grindstones  are  made  of  human  flesh  un- 
naturally petrified,  and  it  is  against  nature 
that  they  are  grinding  human  flesh  be- 
tween them. 

The  judge  and  the  lawyers  and  deputies 
and  policemen  are  nothing  but  bolts 
and  rivets  and  bars,  —  but  iron  and 
flint. 

They  are  no  longer  men  ;  they  have  abdicated 
their  humanity  and  are  now  merely  so 
much  machinery. 

How  sure  His  Honour  is  as  he  sits  there  that 
he  will  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven 
before  these  vulgar  transgressors  ! 

I  am  not  so  sure. 

The  greatest  crime  a  man  can  commit  is  to 
make  a  machine  of  himself. 

A  machine  is  lower  than  a  brute,  and  to  sink 
to  that  level  is  worse  than  robbery  or 
murder. 

It  is  worse  because  it  is  less  human. 


86  TOWN   PICTURES 

I  think  I  comprehend  now  why  I  had  such  an 
aversion  for  the  hard  faces  of  these  legal 
people. 

A  trial  has  begun  at  last. 

They  are  swearing  a  detective  as  witness. 

Every  one  knows  that  his  trade  and  character 
are  much  lower  than  the  prisoner's  at  the 
bar,  but  here  he  is  recognised  as  a  brother- 
administrator  of  justice  and  is  esteemed 
accordingly. 

A  police-officer  follows  him  and  kisses  the 
greasy  Bible. 

They  are  all  aware  that  a  policeman  will  swear 
to  anything,  though  a  man  hang  for  it, 
and  yet  here  his  word  passes  for  gospel 
truth. 

It  is  the  business  of  mills  to  grind  and  the  faces 
of  the  poor  have  always  been  ground  ; 
shall  we  blame  the  undiscriminating  grind- 
stones ? 

In  France  they  hang  up  a  picture  of  Christ-on- 
the-Cross  over  the  bench  in  every  court- 
room. 

That  murder  was  the  deed  of  a  court  of  law, — 
of  two  courts  in  fact. 

What  a  gallery  we  could  make  of  the  sad  work 
of  similar  mills  of  justice  ! 

There  I  seem  to  see  hanging  on  the  dingy  wall 
the  faces  of  Socrates  and  Paul,  of  Savon- 
arola and  More,  of  Huss  and  Galileo,  of 
Barneveldt  and  Sidney  and  John  Brown. 

If  the  judge  could  see  and  understand  them, 
he  would  feel  less  virtuous  and  superior. 


TOWN   PICTURES  87 

How  many  judges  are  only  remembered  now 
on  account  of  the  felons  whom  they  des- 
pised ! 

Ah,  your  Honour  does  not  know  what  dirty 
work  this  is  at  its  best ! 

You  are  the  partner  of  the  informer  and  execu- 
tioner and  not  a  whit  more  respectable 
than  they  are. 

Let  us  leave  the  fetid,  accursed  place. 

At  the  door  a  thin,  timid  young  woman,  weary 
and  wan,  a  black  shawl  thrown  over  her 
head,  is  asking  a  policeman  where  she  can 
find  her  husband. 

She  speaks  English  badly  and  holds  up  a  soiled 
piece  of  crumpled  paper  which  bears  his 
name. 

He  has  been  arrested,  she  says,  and  all  day 
long  she  has  sought  him  in  vain,  wander- 
ing from  court  to  court. 

The  man  does  not  half  listen  to  her. 

How  should  a  machine  hear  ? 

He  brushes  her  away. 

She  turns  to  another  and  another,  but  not  one 
of  them  will  give  her  his  attention. 

They  are  all  under  the  spell  of  machine-made 
justice  which  knows  neither  mercy  nor 
humanity. 

Cry  on,  poor  child,  in  the  foul  dark  corner  of 
the  corridor  under  the  feeble  gas-jet. 

If  only  you  could  get  at  the  prisoners  in  the 
pen  and  ask  them  your  question,  they 
might  perhaps  hear  you,  and  answer  you, 
and  take  some  interest  in  you,  for  they  are 


88  TOWN    PICTURES 

only  unhappy  human  sinners  and  have 
not  yet  been  transformed  into  machines. 
But  here  there  is  no  hope  for  you. 
Cry  on,  poor  child  ! 


IV 

I  know  you  are  not  telling  the  truth. 

You  have  no  starving  wife  and  children,  and 
you  do  not  want  a  ticket  to  Boston  to 
enable  you  to  find  work. 

What  you  wish  for  is  another  glass  of  whiskey. 

You  are  not  only  lying  but  lying  most  unskil- 
fully. 

And  yet  I  believe  in  you,  though  I  do  not  believe 
you. 

If  I  did  not  believe  in  you,  I  should  lose  faith 
in  the  Universe. 

Underneath  all  this  falsehood  there  is  some- 
thing firm  and  true  that  I  will  swear  by. 

It  is  well  that  I  should  assure  you  of  it,  for  you 
may  not  know  it. 

Here  is  your  dollar  ;  spend  it  as  you  will ;  but 
remember  that  there  is  one  who  trusts  you. 


Riding  down  the  Bowery  on  an  electric  car,  I 
see  on  the  right  a  drayman,  heavy,  set  in 
his  ways,  trying  perversely  to  drive  across 
the  street  with  his  load  before  we  reach 
him. 


TOWN   PICTURES  89 

Our  motor-man  sees  him  too,  and  might  let  him 
pass  by  yielding  his  rights  a  little,  but  he 
only  pushes  on  the  faster. 

The  drayman  is  forced  to  pull  his  team  hastily 
to  one  side,  and  the  car  strikes  the  nose  of 
the  inoffensive  near  horse. 

The  driver  scowls  and  mutters  low,  ineffectual 
curses. 

The  motor-man  looks  back  with  a  sneer  of 
exultation. 

All  hell  has  been  loose  in  the  Bowery  this  morn- 
ing. 

VI 

When  I  skim  over  the  literary  journals  one 
after  another  in  the  reading-room, 

How  they  cloy  and  pall  upon  me,  like  a  diet  of 
sweets  ! 

Words,  words,  words  ! — 

The  sickening  idea  of  mere  unrelated  litera- 
ture,— 

The  disgustingness  of  words  as  the  main  end  of 
life, — 

As  if  words  should  be  aught  but  the  foot-notes 
of  life,— 

The  notes  in  small  letters  and  the  life  itself 
writ  out  in  large, — 

Such  are  the  thoughts  that  I  think  in  the 
reading-room, 

While  I  hear  the  heavy  carts  thunder  along 
towards  Broadway,  shaking  the  very 
walls  of  the  building. 


90  TOWN   PICTURES 

VII 

The  bustling,  noisy  street,  in  the  foreground — 

drays    coming    and    going,   electric    cars 

flying  by  and  ringing  their  warning  bell ; 
Foot-passengers    hastening   their   steps,    each 

intent  on  his  own  errand ; 
Round  the  corner  you  see  the  great  primary 

school. 
The  two  low  doors,  one  at  each  end  of  the 

facade,  are  opening,  and  now  two  streams 

begin  to  flow  out  as  from  a  tapped  reservoir. 
One  stream  is  of  frolicking,  shouting  small  boys, 

the  other  of  chattering  little  girls. 
Each  of  the  twin  streams  splits  in  two,  and  the 

two  halves  which  flow  our  way  mingle 

their  waters. 
Boys  and  girls,  red  hoods  and  torn  brown  caps, 

bags  of  books  and  lunch  boxes  ;   on  they 

come,  fearlessly,  to  the  crossing. 
Then  on  the  curb  for  a  moment  they  gather  as 

behind  an  invisible  dam. 
Will  they  dare  to  rush  in  between  the  cars  and 

carts  and  carriages  ? 

Can  they  possibly  cross  without  accident  ? 
Ah,  they  know  better  than  we  do. 
From  the  other  side  of  the  way  their  daily 

friend  advances  to  meet  them,  the  gigantic, 

broad-girthed  policeman. 
He  holds  out  both  hands  and  they  flock  around 

him. 
Soon  he  has  a  tiny  maiden  swinging  in  the  air 

on  each  arm. 


TOWN   PICTURES  91 

A  half-dozen  boys  are  hanging  on  to  his  ample 

coat-tails. 
There  are  children  before  him  and  behind  him 

and  between  his  legs,  so  that  he  has  to 

pick  his  way. 
He  lifts  his  hand,  and  as  before  a  new  Moses 

a    pathway    opens    across    the    crowded 

thoroughfare,  the  flood  of  traffic  banked 

up  on  either  side. 
Confidently  relying  on  this  towering    pillar  of 

protection,  the  youngsters  pass  over  and 

scamper  down  the  street  until  the  last  little 

damsel  disappears  waving  her  hand  back 

at  their  champion. 
Oh,  if  uniforms  and  brass  buttons  always  stood 

for  that ! 

VIII 

The  Hungarian  band  is  in  full  swing. 

The  swarthy  little  Gypsy  leader,  with  his  back 
to  the  three  fiddlers  and  zither-player,  is 
swaying  to  and  fro  over  his  violin,  oblivious 
of  everything  but  his  half-improvised, 
unmeasured  outbursts  of  minor  harmonies. 

Round  the  tables  sit  comfortable  listeners — 
men,  women  and  children — and  before 
each  is  a  foaming  mug  of  amber  beer. 

An  occasional  sandwich  of  rye  bread  and  Swiss 
cheese  with  plentiful  mustard  breaks  the 
monotony. 

The  music  stops  and  there  is  much  clapping  of 
hands,  and  now  a  low  hum  of  conversation 
sets  in. 


92  TOWN   PICTURES 

There  is  a  general  sense  of  satisfaction  and  good 

humour  and  leisure. 
The  genial  red-faced  host  at  the  bar  beams  on 

us  like  a  veritable  Gambrinus. 
Even  my  blond,  fat  waiter  looks  as  if  he  liked 
to  stand  there  dreaming,  with  a  napkin 
over  the  worn  sleeves  of  his  black  alpaca 
jacket. 

On  the  walls  are  brilliant  pictures  of  knights 
and  maidens  let  into  the  heavy  wood  work, 
with  mottoes  from  German  ballads. 
Can  this  be  the  infernal  realm  of  King  Alcohol 

of  which  I  have  heard  so  much  ? 
Yesterday  I  was  in  the  country  of  his  enemy, 

the  dairy  lunch-room. 

Framed  Scripture  texts  were  hung  up  here  and 
there  above  my  head,  interspersed  with 
gentle  reminders  to  "  Beware  of  pick- 
pockets." 

The  pale  young  clerk  who  sat  opposite,  to  me  at 
the  narrow  varnished  table,  ate  his  pork 
and  beans  and  buck- wheat  cakes  for  dinner 
in  just  seven  minutes  by  the  clock,  and  left 
me  before  I  had  quite  assimilated  the  fact 
of  his  arrival. 
All  the  rest  were  too  busy  in  doing  likewise  to 

notice  him. 

No  one  spoke  to  his  neighbour  and  the  only 
dissipation  was  the  universal  reading  of 
the  cheapest  evening  papers. 
The  spare,  overworked  damsels  of  uncertain  age 
who  waited  on  us,  made  my  heart  ache  for 
their  strident  weariness. 


TOWN   PICTURES  93 

I  was  hardly  surprised  that  the  habitues  made 

such  haste  to  get  away. 
Is  it  any  wonder  that  King  Alcohol,  with  all  his 

crimes  on  his  head,  should  triumph  over 

King  Temperance,  relying  solely  on  his 

prim,  dyspeptic,  negative  virtues  ? 
I  believe  joviality  has  its  place  in  the  Kingdom 

of  Heaven. 

I  believe  the  angels  are  jovial. 
We  ought  to  be  jovial  without  beer,  but,  failing 

that,  a  bastard  beer  joviality  is  better  than 

nothing. 

IX 

It  is  an  August  evening  in  a  free  roof-garden 
built  for  the  people  on  a  pier  over  the  river. 

I  am  in  a  bad  humour  to-night,  and  I  come  here 
to  cure  myself. 

Crowds  are  sitting  in  rows  on  benches  on  each 
side  of  the  stand  where  the  brass  band  is 
playing,  and  round  them  and  up  and  down 
the  long  deck  from  one  end  to  the  other 
passes  a  continuous  stream  of  promenaders 
under  the  electric  lights. 

I  join  the  shabby  procession,  but  the  vulgar 
flirting  of  those  shrill  shop-girls  with  the 
rough  young  men  behind  them  is  quite 
indecent,  and  offends  me  sadly. 

I  stop  at  the  end  of  the  pier,  and  look  out  at 
the  dark  river  with  its  lights,  white,  red 
and  green. 

It  would  be  altogether  beautiful,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  shriek  of  the  ferry  whistles  in  the 


94  TOWN   PICTURES 

next  slip,  and  the  suggestion  of  sewage  in 
the  south  breeze. 

But  this  will  not  do ;  I  have  not  come  here  to 
complain,  but  to  take  my  regular  cure. 

I  sit  down  on  the  corner  of  a  bench,  not  too 
near  the  musicians. 

And  now  I  begin  to  love. 

At  first  it  is  an  effort,  and  I  undertake  only  the 
children,  for  they  are  the  easiest. 

There  is  a  baby  yonder,  jumping  on  its  mother's 
arm  in  time  with  the  trumpets,  and  another 
tiny  dot  dancing  across  the  floor  holding 
her  pink  skirts  out  with  her  hands. 

Now  I  am  loving  them  hard,  like  a  new-kindled 
coal  fire  with  the  blower  on,  and  I  can 
almost  hear  my  heart  roar. 

I  have  soon  reached  the  point  of  loving  all  the 
children  (and  how  many  there  are),  even 
the  most  perverse,  and  gradually  the 
mothers  too  move  into  my  focus. 

The  old  people  come  next.  How  I  love  that 
respectable  old  Irishwoman  there  with  her 
cap  and  red  shawl,  watching  her  grand- 
child (or  is  it  her  great-grandchild  ?) — and 
the  sturdy  German  grandsire  asleep  bolt 
upright  in  his  carefully  brushed  black 
coat !  I  could  hug  them  both,  and  I  do  not 
find  it  easy  to  keep  my  hands  off  them. 

But  now  my  love  is  boiling  over,  and  becoming 
indiscriminate. 

I  can  put  it  to  any  test  and  try  it  on  any  one  ; 
it  is  a  conflagration  that  would  outstrip 
any  fire-extinguisher. 


TOWN   PICTURES  95 

I  turn  my  heart  loose  on  the  shabby  procession, 
and  now  I  pronounce  it  worthy  of  a  place 
on  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon. 

I  love  the  pale  tailor  in  his  dirty  shirt-sleeves, 
with  his  sickly  boy  in  his  arms. 

I  love  the  black  hands  of  the  machinist,  and  I 
am  glad  that  he  has  not  washed  them  too 
thoroughly. 

I  love  the  thin,  grey-haired  old  maid  with 
spectacles  (how  surprised  she  would  be  if 
she  knew  it !)  and  the  young  rowdies  who 
are  waltzing  together. 

Here  come  the  same  vulgar  youths  and  maidens 
who  shocked  me  an  hour  ago,  quite  as 
vulgar  as  ever,  and  yet  now  I  love  them 
till  I  see  nothing  that  is  not  divine  in  them. 

Love  covers  a  multitude  of  sins— indeed  it 
does  ! 

But  the  band  is  playing  "  Home,  Sweet  Home," 
and  the  multitude  has  already  half  dis- 
appeared. 

It  is  time  for  me  to  close  the  draughts  and  let 
the  fire  go  down. 

My  love-cure  has  worked  its  wonted  miracle, 
and  blues  and  ill  humour  have  gone. 

As  a  patent-medicine  I  should  like  to  sing  its 
praises  and  advertise  its  virtues,  until 
whole  cities  should  take  it  for  their  muni- 
cipal ailments,  and  statesmen  prescribe  it 
to  their  several  nations. 

Who  says  there  is  no  panacea  ? 

Love  is  the  great  panacea  ! 


96  COUNTRY  PICTURES 


Country  Pictures 

I 

TRAMPING  down  the  broad  green  valley, 
over  the  ribs  of  the  mountains, — 
Following  the  good  old  dusty  road  as  it  winds, 

and  catching  glimpses  of  the  distant  creek 

there  below, — 
Breathing    it    all    in, — the    summer    air,    the 

harvest    view,    the     noise    of    crickets, 

with  all  our  senses  confused  in  one  blithe 

ecstasy, — 
Rejoicing  in  the  strength  of  our  legs  and  walking 

faster  now  near  sun-down  than  we  did  in 

the  early  morning, — 
We  are  free, — free  ! 
We  carry  no  burden  to  speak  of, — we  stop 

where  we  like, — we  are  chained  down  by  no 

property  or  respectability — yet  we  own  all 

that  we  see  and  feel  compassion  for  the 

people  we  pass. 
I  spy  the  spire  of  a  village,  three  miles  below 

us,  at  the  turn  in  the  valley. 
We  halt  and  examine  our  map  ;  yes,  there  we 

shall  sleep,  unless  we  change  our  minds 

before  we  get  there. 
Oh,  to  live  ever  like  this,  with  our  shirt-sleeves 

rolled  back  well  above  the  elbows  and  our 

arms  browning  like  the    best    of    meer- 

chaum, — 


COUNTRY   PICTURES  97 

Never  to  resort  again  to  our  prisons, — to  be 
forever  on  our  own  feet,  like  yon  hawk  on 
its  own  wings  ! 

Men  made  carriages  and  bicycles  and  motor- 
cars and  ambulances  and  hearses,  but  God 
made  legs ! 


II 

They  are  taking  the  apple-orchard  by  assault. 

The  storming-party  are  attacking  the  old  tree 
in  the  corner  and  the  butts  of  their  ladders, 
propped  up  against  it,  protrude  beneath 
the  foliage. 

There  is  a  rustling  of  leaves,  a  noise  of  the  soft 
dropping  of  fruit  into  baskets,  and  of  the 
low  talk  of  hidden  men. 

Now  and  then  the  sun  shines  on  the  apparition 
of  an  eager  hand  or  on  a  bit  of  checkered 
clothing. 

The  red  globes  (redder  on  the  south  side  of  the 
tree)  have  half  disappeared,  and  the  tree 
is  joining  the  rest  of  the  row  behind  it  in 
sombre  mourning  verdure. 

Little  blotches  of  Paris-green  from  last  April's 
spraying  still  spot  the  leaves. 

A  cedar- waxwing,  afraid  to  approach  her  nest, 
chirps  in  the  nearest  tree. 

Over  there  they  empty  the  baskets  on  a  sail- 
cloth stretched  on  the  ground  in  the  shade, 
and  one  of  the  men,  seated  on  it,  sorts 
them  into  piles,  jerking  the  bad  ones 
away  behind  him. 

B.  G 


98  COUNTRY   PICTURES 

Two  others  are  filling  a  clean  new  barrel,  and 
the  basketfuls  fall  in  with  a  hollow  musical 
nimble. 

They  screw  down  the  top  with  a  hand-press, 
squeezing  the  apples  against  each  other, 
and  they  drive  in  the  nails  around  with  a 
sharp  click. 

A  waggon  will  come  to-night  and  draw  the 
barrels  away  to  the  river,  and  they  will  go 
down  to  the  harbour  in  a  freight-boat,  and 
then  they  will  board  a  great  steamer  and 
set  sail  to  cross  the  Atlantic  on  the  morrow. 

They  are  all  going  to  England,  and  in  another 
fortnight  their  ruddy  tinge  will  be  tinting 
fresh  English  cheeks. 

I  stand  under  a  tree  and  pick  the  fruit  over  my 
head,  occasionally  slipping  as  I  tread  on 
the  windfalls  in  the  grass,  destined  later  for 
the  cider-barrel. 

There  is  a  delicious  aroma  of  apples  in  the 
air. 

A  dozen  ripe  fruit  hang  in  a  row  above  me  from 
a  slender  switch  of  a  branch  bent  nearly 
double  by  their  weight,  and  it  rises  out  of 
my  reach  as  I  pluck  them  one  by  one. 

There  is  something  almost  sensuous  in  the  feel 
of  three  big  apples  on  one  twig  as  I  grasp 
them  in  one  hand  and  twist  them  off  with 
a  turn  of  the  wrist. 

A  grasshopper  perched  on  an  apple  lying  on  the 
ground  seems  to  be  watching  me  at  my 
work. 

I  would  like  to  pack  the  atmosphere  of  the  whole 


COUNTRY   PICTURES  99 

cheerful  scene  away  in  the  barrels  and  send 
it  over  sea  too,  and  with  it  heaping  basket- 
fuls  of  good  will. 

How  I  wish  that  they  could  taste  the  added 
flavour ! 

But  wait !  In  my  world,  when  I  have  created 
it,  all  other  fruit  will  taste  sour,  and  my 
apples  will  drink  in  friendliness  to  as  good 
purpose  as  they  now  absorb  the  sunshine. 


Ill 


Sleighing  swiftly  westward  into  the  late  sun- 
set.— 

The  deep  snow  lies  white  over  all,  hill  and  plain 
and  distant  Catskills. 

The  broad  river  is  a  solid  shimmer  of  white, 
sown  with  diamonds. 

The  stone  wall  bounding  the  road  on  the  left  is 
hidden  in  snowdrifts. 

The  wall  on  the  right  is  topped  and  corniced 
with  new-born  marble. 

The  branches  of  the  black  hemlocks  are  bending 
heavy  laden  with  whiteness. 

Before  my  cutter  the  track  extends,  two  deep 
ruts  with  a  silvery  pink  streak  at  the  bot- 
tom of  each,  polished  by  burnished  runners 
and  leading  up  to  the  western  sky. 

A  layer  of  crimson  rests  upon  the  sweep  of 
snowy  horizon  ahead,  tinting  the  rolling 
snowfields  with  rosy  shades. 


ioo          COUNTRY  PICTURES 

My  horse,  Charley,  lets  himself  out  at  a  full  trot 

along  one  of  the  deep  ruts  (for  the  shafts 

are  so  hung  that  he  may  follow  the  one  on 

the  left),  and  the  soft  snow  between  the 

runners  just  grazes   the   bottom  of  the 

sleigh. 
He  is  so  warm  under  his  long  furry  hair  that  a 

cloud  of  steam  rises  from  his  back  and 

sides. 
His  girdle  of  jubilant  bells  rings  out  and  gives 

voice  to  his  own  delight  in  his  speed  and 

the  crisp  fresh  air. 
Oh,  the  exhilaration  of  it ! 
What   poet   inventor   discovered   the   eternal 

affinity  of  snow  and  sleigh-bells  ? 
And  I,  too,  am  warm  under  my  furs  and  wraps, 

a  clumsy  oasis  of  heat  in  the  midst  of  arctic 

cold. 
Only  my  fingers  ache  a  little  now  and  again, 

and  I  must  hold  the  reins  in  my  right 

hand  for  a  time  and  thrust  my  left  in 

its  thick  woollen  glove  under  the  lap  robes 

and  work  my  fingers  until  they  are  warm 

again. 
My  upper  lip  is  stiff  with  its  frosted  moustache 

and  my  ears  tingle  just  enough  to  make  me 

appreciate  my  glowing  body. 
I  love  the  frozen,  swift  white  road,  free  from 

dust  and  mud  and  motor  cars. 
I  love  the  beautiful  white  cold  earth  and  the 

beautiful  pink,  cold  sky. 
Not  a  breath  of  wind  disturbs  the  intensity  of 

their  stillness. 


COUNTRY   PICTURES  101 

(There  is  no  noise  in  the  sleigh-bells,  for  theirs 
is  only  the  spirit  of  tone.) 

I  would  not  be  banished  for  all  the  year  to  the 
noisy,  buzzy  summer-land  and  miss  for 
ever  this  pure  hushed  zone  of  crystal  and 
silver. 

I  love  to  be  a  coal  of  fire  in  the  midst  of  the 
polar  frost. 

It  is  warm  under  the  snow,  too. 

Think  of  the  myriads  of  living  things,  of  chip- 
munks and  woodchucks,  of  toads  and 
insects,  and  creatures  that  creep  and  fly, 
snuggling  and  all  tucked  in  under  the  kindly 
coverlet. 

They  sleep  through  the  winter  night — with 
the  white  counterpane  on  top  and  the 
warm,  green  blanket  underneath. 

There  are  big  rough  bears  dreaming  over  there, 
too,  on  the  mountains. 

Think  of  the  millions  of  seeds  and  eggs  ready  to 
burst  forth  when  the  sun  lifts  their  bed- 
clothes and  gives  them  a  tepid  bath  in  the 
year's  new  morning. 

The  earth  is  as  warm  as  I  am  under  its  wraps, 
and,  like  me,  only  here  and  there  in  its 
moustache  and  fingers  does  it  feel  the  hurt 
of  the  keen,  clear  air. 

We  are  brothers — swift,  warm  brothers — the 
earth  and  Charley  and  I — carrying  our  live 
coals  of  joy  through  frigid  space,  with  only 
pain  enough  to  accentuate  the  pleasure. 

And  the  sleigh-bells — the  sleigh-balls — are  our 
music  of  the  spheres. 


102      THE   LIVING   UNIVERSE 


The  Living  Universe 

I 

WHAT  are  you,  stars  of  night,  revolving, 
journeying,  pulsing  ever — 

What  are  you,  planets,  visible  and  invisible,  of 
this  and  other  systems — 

What  but  life  magnified — the  life  of  my  frame 
and  tissue  infinitely,  stupendously  magni- 
fied ? 

Throw  away  your  microscopes,  O  naturalists  ! 
your  naked  eye  is  as  good  as  any  magni- 
fying glass. 

Will  you  ever  see  clearer  into  germ  or  proto- 
plasm than  you  see  into  the  living  heavens 
with  their  shining  molecules  ? 


II 

I  know  the  secret  of  the  universe. 

Now  at  last  I  have  found  out  what  ails  it. 

The  universe  is  in  love. 

It  is  giving  itself  a  prodigious  reckless  hug. 

It  hugs  too  hard,  but  it  loves  too  much  to  give 

any  heed  to  protests. 
Its  love  is  the  source  of  all  pleasure  and  the 

source  of  all  pain. 
It  loves  the  lively  birds  and  beasts  and  the 

strenuous  men  who  feed  on  them  and  the 


THE   LIVING   UNIVERSE       103 

beautiful  microbes  and  tumours  that  feed 
on  the  men,  and  most  of  all  it  loves  the 
tremor  and  friction  and  oppugnance  be- 
tween its  loves,  and  sets  its  teeth  to  the 
shock  and  thrill  of  them. 

There  is  a  bite  in  its  burning  kiss  that  gives  vent 
to  love's  unbearable  intensity. 

The  universe  needs  safety  valves,  and  we  are 
its  safety  valves. 

If  it  were  not  for  its  outlet  through  us  and  our 
agonies,  it  would  go  mad  or  explode. 

Yes,  there  is  an  agony  in  love  and  the  universe 
is  in  love. 

Gravitation  is  love  and  the  attraction  of  atoms 
for  each  other  is  love. 

The  vibrant  light  is  love,  and  the  tingling  of 
heat  is  love. 

The  planets,  straining  in  their  orbits,  trace 
"  love  "  on  the  face  of  the  heavens. 

The  perplexed  waves,  drawn  now  skyward,  now 
earthward,  write  "  love  "  all  over  the  sea. 

Love  sucks  the  rivers  to  their  sources  and  the 
sap  to  the  tips  of  the  trees. 

Love  clasps  star  to  star  and  molecule  to  mole- 
cule. 

There  is  nothing  but  love. 

All  life  is  nothing  but  hugging,  and  the  uni- 
verse is  one  long  excruciating  embrace  ! 


104  LOVE 

Love 

I 

WHEN  I  thought  you  were  perfect  and 
far  above  our  slips  and  trips,  it  was 
an  effort  to  love  you. 

But  now  that  you  have  confessed  your  fault, 
(so  like  my  own  fault  that  I  have  never  con- 
fessed) I  am  drawn  irresistibly  to  you. 
How  can  they  love  in  heaven  where  there 
are  no  common  weaknesses  to  bind  them 
together  ? 

II 

What  do  you  love  most  in  your  sweetheart, — 
that  which  she  shares  with  all  others,  or 
the  inexplicable  thing  which  differentiates 
her  from  them  all  ? 

When  the  deep  underlying  humanity  is  as 
fascinating  to  us  as  the  shallow  variations, 
what  will  then  become  of  all  our  billing  and 
cooing  and  pairing  ? 

Ill 

Do  you  love  each  other  only  ? 

It  will  soon  burn  out, — that  love. 

One  love  will  devour  the  other. 

Try  loving  the  world  together,  and  turn  your 

bonfire  of  shavings  into  a  blast  -  furnace 

with  all  the  universe  for  fuel. 


LOVE  105 

IV 

There  is  something  beyond  brotherhood. 

Brotherhood  is  very  good  in  its  way,  but  court- 
ing and  wedlock  are  better. 

I  had  rather  woo  the  world  than  be  brother  to 
it. 

I  want  my  life  to  be  one  long  love-story. 


There  is  a  higher  love  than  ours  at  its  best. 

The  love  which  we  know  has  too  much  alloy  in 
it  of  pity  and  compassion. 

I  want  no  one  to  pity  me,  and,  by  the  Golden 
Rule,  I  must  not  indulge  too  deeply  in  the 
luxury  of  pitying  others. 

I  want  my  mother  to  keep  out  of  my  eyes. 

I  do  not  wish  my  voice  to  quaver,  nor  do  I 
willingly  lose  control  of  my  countenance. 

The  "  Ewig-Weibliche "  is  better  than  self- 
seeking  and  barbarism,  no  doubt,  but  we 
shall  find  something  still  higher  beyond  it. 

There  is  a  love  that  can  give  and  take  on  equal 
terms  without  a  tremor  of  the  under-lip, 
—  which  stands  as  firm  on  its  base  as 
yonder  Catskills,  —  which  flows  as  broad 
and  steady  as  the  Hudson  at  their  feet. 

Let  us  press  forward  to  that  supreme  love. 

VI 

What  is  this  talk  of  egoism  and  altruism,  as  if 
they  were  at  enmity  with  each  other,  and 


106  GOD'S   WINDOW 

not  rather  the  twin  sides  of  character, 

growing    symmetrically    and    with    even 

balance  ? 
The  infinite  love  of  Jesus  made  him  conscious 

that  he  was  the  Son  of  God,  and  that  he 

and  the  Father  were  one. 
Could  his  egoism  have  gone  beyond  this  in  its 

effort  to  overtake  his  altruism  ? 
Nay,  love  the  Lord  thy  God, — in  thyself, — the 

deepest  egoism  ; 
Love  thy  neighbour, — and  the  Lord  thy  God 

in  him, — the  widest  altruism  ; 
Love  God  in  all  things,  for  this   is   the   one 

commandment. 


God's  Window 

GOD  has  a  house  that's  wide  and  tall, 
And  I'm  a  window  in  his  wall. 
How  clear  and  pure  I  ought  to  be 
If  God  must  view  his  world  through  me  ! 


MY  SOUL  107 


My  Soul 

I 

WHAT  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  " 
O  narrow,  selfish,  trivial  question  ! 

Implying  no  mere  selfishness  of  a  minute  or 
hour  or  day,  but  a  whole  eternity  of  in- 
growing soul. 

Is  my  salvation  a  matter  of  such  importance  ? 

Those  only  are  saved  who  do  not  care  whether 
they  are  saved  or  not. 

The  soul  can  indeed  save  itself,  but  only  by 
forgetting  itself,  and  jumping  overboard 
out  of  itself. 


II 

I  found  my  soul  lying  neglected,  and  I  picked 

it    up   and   wondered  what   the   strange 

mechanism  was  for. 
I  went  to  school  to  learn  what  use  to  make  of 

my  soul. 
They  taught  me  to  think  with  it,  but  it  strained 

and  creaked  and  nearly  gave  way  under 

the  ordeal. 
They  showed  me  how  to  amuse  myself  with  it, 

but  it  speedily  got  out  of  order  and  refused 

to  work. 


io8  MY   SOUL 

Then  they  trained  me  to  hate  with  my  soul,  but 

it  broke  down  utterly  and  nearly  fell  to 

pieces. 
I  came  back  from  school  disgusted  with  my 

soul  and  my  teachers. 
It  was  long  after  (alone,  lying  on  my  bed  in  the 

night  watches)  that  it  flashed  upon    me 

what  my  soul  was  for. 
Why  did  none  of  them  tell  me  that  my  soul 

was  a  loving  machine  ? 


Ill 

Are  there  extinct  suns  revolving  dark  and  in- 
visible through  space,  waiting  for  their 
fires  to  rekindle  ? 

Such  I  feel  myself  to  be  as  I  follow  my  dim 
orbit. 

Oh,  to  be  a  sun,  a  burning  shining  sun,  with 
healing  in  its  beams, 

Radiating  all  that  is  best  in  it  so  that  all  within 
its  circle  is  made  clean  and  wholesome  and 
warm ! 

I  am  a  dynamo  with  the  current  turned  off. 

When  will  they  turn  it  on  ? 


IV 

Living  at  low  pressure, — 
Scarcely  enough  steam  up  to  keep  in  motion  at 
all,— 


MY   SOUL  109 

Going  through  the  forms  of  conviction  and 
enthusiasm  on  the  memories  of  full,  ecsta- 
tic hours  warmed  over, — 

I  wait  despondently  for  the  moment  of  com- 
plete collapse. 

But  no.  The  power  rises ;  the  pressure  re- 
doubles ;  the  heat  kindles ;  the  heart 
quickens. 

I  shall  once  more  really  live,  and  there  are  still 
full  ecstatic  hours  in  store. 


I  can  hardly  keep  from  smiling  indecorously 
this  sunshiny  morning  as  I  walk  along 
Broadway,  I  am  on  such  good  terms  with 
everybody ; 

They  are  all  such  good  fellows,  I  am  sure  they 
are. 

I  wish  I  could  think  of  some  one  who  had  served 
me  a  bad  turn,  so  that  I  might  play  him  a 
good  one  in  revenge. 

What  a  luxury  forgiveness  is  ! 

I  am  in  serious  danger  of  loving  my  enemies 
more  than  my  friends  to-day, — 

I  am  under  such  obligations  to  them  for  bring- 
ing out  all  that  is  most  delicious  in  me. 

The  sun  is  shining  this  morning  inside  and  out. 


no  MY   SOUL 

VI 

You  who  would  convince  me  of  my  immortality 
by  means  of  mysterious  rappings  in  dark- 
ened rooms  and  magic  slates  and  moving 
tables, 

How  hopelessly  beside  the  mark  are  all  your 
efforts  ! 

I  have  Moses  and  the  prophets,  David  and 
Isaiah,  Paul  and  John,  Tolstoy  and  Whit- 
man, and  if  I  hear  not  them,  neither  shall 
I  be  persuaded  though  one  rose  from  the 
dead. 

The  man  who  is  deaf  to  the  prophets  has  failed 
to  become  conscious  of  his  own  immortal 
self,  and  the  self  that  he  cherishes  shall 
die,  all  the  slates  and  tables  to  the  con- 
trary notwithstanding. 


VII 

I  stand  wistfully  at  the  door. 

I  want  to  go  in  but  the  price  of  admission  is  too 
high  for  me. 

I  say  that  the  door  is  shut, — that  there  is  no 
room  for  me  within, — that  others  are 
keeping  me  out, — that  it  would  be  selfish 
to  go  in  alone, — but  I  know  it  is  all  untrue. 

What  I  mean  is  that  the  price  is  too  high. 

And  what  is  the  price  ? 

The  price  is  simply  to  go  in, — to  take  the  one 
short,  necessary  step  across  the  threshold. 


MY   SOUL  in 

VIII 

Prayer  is  not  an  asking  for  things, 

Nor  a  solemn  repetition  of  good  words, 

Nor  a  Hindoo  wheel  turning  in  the  wind. 

Prayer  is  a  vital  change. 

It  is  the  deepening  of  the  soul. 

It  is  the  shifting  inward  of  my  centre  of  gravity 

toward  the  great  Source  of  life. 
This  is  the  only  prayer. 
And  there  is  but  one  answer  to  prayer,  and 

that  is  the  influx  of  the  waters  of  life 

welling  up  within  me. 


IX 

No  far-away  despot, 

No  worn  tradition, 

No  shadowy  background  for  Nature's  give  and 

take, 
No  algebraic  insoluble  X,  nor  mark  devised  to 

stand  for  an  unknowable  infinity, 
No  arbitrary  postulate  or  working  theory, 
No  guess  in  the  dark, — 
My  God  is  none  of  these  things. 
Nay,  God  is  an  experience  of  the  soul. 


Stop  rummaging  in  the  past  for  musty  causes, 
O  scientist ! 


112  MY   SOUL 

Seek  not  the  living  among  the  dead. 

Life  is, — not  was, — and  must  ever  continue  to 

be. 
How  can  the  vanished   columns  of   ages   ago 

sustain  our  present  temples  ? 
Then  search,  not  for  dead  causes,  but  for  the 

Living  God. 


XI 

At  the  source  of  my  being, — 

At  the  point  where  life  wells  up  within  me, — 

There  my  soul  opens  out  into  a  new  and  wider 
plane, — 

There  I  am  in  touch  at  all  points  with  all 
things, — 

There  I  feel  dim  suggestions  of  another  di- 
mension,— hints  of  the  unfolding  of  new 
celestial  vistas  from  every  commonplace, 
familiar  spot  of  earth. 


XII 

But  I  seldom  venture  into  the  spiritual  storm- 
centre  which  is  myself, — 

That  vortex  of  the  contending  east  and  west 
winds  of  truth  ; — 

I  fear  the  strain  upon  my  outer  self  too  much. 

I  live  for  the  most  part  on  the  outskirts  with 
back  turned  and  fingers  in  ears,  gazing  at 
the  rigid  world  outside. 


MY   SOUL  113 

And  yet  I  know,  and  am  content  to  know  that 
sooner  or  later  I  shall  be  drawn  in  and 
through  and  up,  beyond  the  east  wind  and 
the  west  wind,  and  the  rush  and  roar  of 
opposites,  and  the  duel  of  good  and  evil, 
to  the  balance  and  poise  which  are  even  to 
a  greater  degree  myself. 


XIII 

O  my  heart's  flood,  run  high  ! 

Thou  round  bright  magnet  of  the  midnight 
skies,  bend  down  and  lift  the  waters  till  I 
overflow  and  float,  buoyed  up  in  my  own 
liquid  atmosphere,  while  love  and  truth 
come  rushing  in  from  the  eternal  sea  to  fill 
the  void. 

To  be  filled,  to  run  over,  to  float, — what  is  there 
else  to  live  for  ? 

O  my  heart's  tide,  run  high  ! 


XIV 

Madness,  divine  madness  ! 

Who  ever  lived  a  life  worth  living  without 

madness  ? 
Who  ever  saw  the  ineffable  dream  and  came 

back  completely  sane  ? 
There  is  a  comprehensive  sanity  above  the 

madness,  but  that  is  beyond  human  reach. 
The  only  other  sanity  is  that  which  men  share 

with  other  animals  and  trees. 

B.  H 


114  MY   SOUL 

We  cannot  rest  in  that. 

Onward,  upward,  to  the  other, — through  the 


madness ! 


XV 


As  I  lie  in  my  bed  at  night, 

I  go  forth  and  hover  over  the  many-mansioned 

city. 
I  can  see  into  all  its  multitudinous  homes,  and 

I  give  of  myself  with  both  hands  to  the 

eager,  expectant  inmates. 
Hungrily  they  lift  their  arms  toward  me  and 

we  are  drawn  to  each  other. 
But  I  am  also  drawn  upward  by  an  attraction 

from  above  ;  I  do  not  descend, — I  rise, 

and  they  rise  with  me. 
Like  an  aeronaut  throwing  off  ballast,  I  go  up, 

up. 
Then,  when  I  should  attain  the  acme  of  all,  I 

am  left  in  confusion. 
There  is  light  there, — and  peace, — and  intense 

action, — I  feel  it, — but  it  all  baffles  me, — 

baffles  me  again  and  again, 
As  I  lie  in  my  bed. 

XVI 

Poised  in  the  buoyant  atmosphere  of  universal 
love,  all  things  may  fall  away  from  my 
soul,  and  yet  leave  it  still  secure,  self-cen- 
tred in  the  firmament. 


MY   SOUL  115 

I  float  in  a  sea  of  love. 

Can  there  be  love  without  a  Lover,  I  wonder. 

Is  love  the  mere  act  of  lovers,  or  are  lovers 

episodes  and  eddies  in  the  ocean  of  love  ? 
Which  comes  first,  love  or  lover  ? 
Does  personality  blossom  into  love,  or  does 

love  wake  into  personality  ? 
I  know  not,  but  I  float  in  a  sea  of  love. 


XVII 

In   the   dark, 

Between  the  stars  without  and  the  stars  within, 

My  soul  is  deftly  hung  and  balanced. 

How  rarely  I  go  out  to  look  at  the  stars  at 
night  ? 

And  when  I  go  out  how  seldom  I  lift  my  eyes 
to  heaven  ! 

And  in  the  other  inner  dark,  how  there  too  I 
shun  the  constellations,  and,  when  I  am 
not  actually  sleeping,  how  I  hug  the 
candle-light  and  lamp-light  instead  ! 


XVIII 

When  my  compass  is  deranged  and  the  needle 
vacillates  idly  round  the  horizon, — 

When  the  constellations  seem  hopelessly  tan- 
gled and  I  cannot  tell  the  Great  Bear  from 
the  Southern  Cross, — 


u6  MY   SOUL 

Even  then  there  is  one  sure  resource, — 
I  can  still  tug  at  my  anchor-chain  and  feel  it 
rooted  in  the  solid  earth. 


XIX 

My  soul  is  a  tree,  a  drowsy,  monotonous  tree, 

but  what  care  I  ?  for  the  birds  come  and 

sing  in  its  branches. 
Only  the  common  garden  birds  stay  long  enough 

for  me  to  describe  them  to  you,  and  chirp 

plainly  enough  for  me  to  learn  their  song. 
But  what  of  the  scarlet  birds  of  the  woods  that 

alight  for  a  moment  and  then  in  a  moment 

are  off  again  ? 
What  of  the  flitting  shadows  of  song  that  will 

not  be  scrutinized,  while  they  pour  forth 

weird  minor  shivers  of  melody  whose  bass 

notes  vibrate  into  eternity  ? 
I  cannot  tell  you  of  them.     You  must  watch 

your  own  branches  for  them. 
No  tree  is  so  dead  but  the  birds  will  sing  in  its 

branches. 


XX 

What  is  this  within  me  which  sometimes  when 

I  am  bent  on  enjoyment,   peremptorily 

cries  out,  Nay  ? 
Is  it  not  my  best  self,  jealous  of  some  other, 

outer,   lower    mastery    and    anxious     to 

assert  its  sway  ? 


MY   SOUL  117 

What  is  this  within  me  which,  when  I  have 
learned  the  lesson,  gently  whispers,  "  Now, 
if  you  still  care  to,  do  as  you  wished  "  ? 

Is  it  not  still  the  same  hidden  captain,  sure 
now  of  my  loyalty  and  trusting  me  far 
afield  ? 

At  last  he  knows  that  even  in  the  heart  of  the 
enemy's  country  I  shall  not  think  of 
deserting. 


XXI 

I  cannot  enjoy  a  thing  freely  so  long  as  I  am 
subject  to  it, — so  long  as  I  cannot  do 
without  it. 

I  must  master  it  and  pass  beyond  it  before  I 
can  turn  round  and  enjoy  it. 

If  you  wish  to  own  a  thing,  let  it  go. 

Hold  fast  to  it,  if  you  wish  to  be  its  slave. 

The  chess-player  keeps  his  head  well  above  the 
board. 

He  rises  superior  to  it,  he  looks  down  upon  it, 
he  knows  this  is  only  a  game. 

Play  as  he  does  with  your  passions  and  appe- 
tites. 

Move  them  about  as  pawns  wherever  you  would 
have  them  go, 

But  remember  that  life  is  something  other. 

Then  even  if  the  game  is  lost,  defeat  will  not 
have  reached  you  at  your  point  of  vantage. 


n8  MY  SOUL 

XXII 

Who  would  lead  a  life  tedious  with  tame  suc- 
cesses ? 

There  is  nothing  so  dull,  so  dispiriting  as  suc- 
cess, for  it  robs  me  of  my  chief  treasure, 
the  future. 

It  takes  the  relish  out  of  life  and  leaves  nothing 
behind. 

It  is  defeat  that  is  bracing, — 

To  feel  that  defeat  was  powerless  to  reach 
you, — 

To  lose  all  and  exult  to  find  yourself  still  in- 
tact— 

To  be  impregnable  and  eternal  and  independent 
of  things  and  conditions, — 

To  possess  the  essence  of  victory  in  your  un- 
conquerable courage. 

Life  is  a  school  wherein  failure  is  a  better 
teacher  than  success. 


XXIII 

Where  are  the  cowards  who  bow  down  to  en- 
vironment,— 

Who  think  they  are  made  of  what  they  eat 
and  must  conform  to  the  bed  they  lie  in  ? 

I  am  not  wax, — I  am  energy. 

Like  the  whirlwind  and  waterspout  I  twist  my 
environment  into  my  form,  whether  it  will 
or  not. 

What  is  it  that  transmutes  electricity  into 
auroras,  and  sunlight  into  rainbows,  and 


MY   SOUL  119 

soft  flakes  of  snow  into  stars,  and  ada- 
mant into  crystals,  and  makes  solar 
systems  of  nebulae  ? 

Whatever  it  is,  I  am  its  cousin  german. 

I  too  have  my  ideals  to  work  out  and  the  uni- 
verse is  given  me  for  raw  material. 

I  am  a  signet  and  I  will  put  my  stamp  upon 
the  molten  stuff  before  it  hardens. 

What  allegiance  do  I  owe  to  environment  ?  I 
shed  environments  for  others  as  a  snake 
sheds  its  skin. 

The  world  must  come  my  way — slowly,  if  it 
will — but  still  my  way. 

I  am  a  vortex  launched  in  chaos  to  suck  it  into 
shape. 


XXIV 

I  want  nothing,  nothing,  but  you,  O  Truth ! 

Give  yourself  to  me, — my  arms  are  open  wide. 

Drive  away  the  illusions  that  tremble  at  your 
approach. 

I  do  not  care  how  you  may  look  to  my  dis- 
torted eyes. 

After  my  long  debauch  with  these  phantasms 
I  may  find  you  uncomely, — but  you  are 
comely, — you  only  are  comely. 

Deep  down  within  me, — deeper  than  I  think 
or  feel  or  dream, — even  there  I  need  you, — 
there  is  your  empty  throne. 

And  Truth  whispered,  "  Love,— and  I  will 
come." 


120  MY   SOUL   AGAIN 


My  Soul  Again 

HERE,  where  I  live  (thus  spake  my  soul 
To  me  whose  hair  is  turning  grey), 
No  clock  doth  chime  the  flight  of  time, 
For  we  know  it  is  Now  all  day. 

Here,  where  I  live  (thus  spake  my  soul 

As  it  smiled  at  the  white  that  flecked  my 
hair), 

No  milestones  show  the  road  we  go, 
For  our  Here  is  Everywhere. 

Grow  old,  if  you  will  (thus  spoke  my  soul), 
But  I  am  as  young  as  a  new-born  child. 

Though  your  head  be  hoar  and  burden  sore, 
I  am  strong  and  free  and  wild. 

So  I  thanked  my  cheery  childlike  soul, 
And  laughed  to  know  that  all  was  well ; 

And  I  turned  away  from  my  head  of  grey 
And  went  to  my  soul  to  dwell. 


MICROCOSM  121 

You 


I  WOULD  not  break  your  will,  for,  like  mine, 
it  is  a  sprout  of  the  infinite  will. 
I  might  indeed  wish  to  transform  it,  but  so 
long  as  it  is  will,  let  it  have  its  way. 

II 

Express  yourself. 

Whatever  you  are,  out  with  it ! 

We  do  not  want  a  world  of  masqueraders. 

Make  yourself  felt, — make  your  real  self  felt. 

Put  your  private  stamp  upon  the  future. 

Make  the  world  go  a  bit  differently  from  what 

it  would  have  gone  if  you  had  never  been 

born. 

Imitate  no  one, — saint,  sage  or  hero. 
Be  yourself,  and  perhaps  you  will  find  that 

you  are  by  your  own  birthright  one  of  the 

elect. 


Microcosm 

I  SPLIT  a  grain  of  common  sand 
And  behold  !  within  it  lay 
The  vaulted  universe  bespanned 
By  the  uttermost  Milky  Way. 

I  delved  in  my  narrow  soul,  and  lo  ! 

At  my  being's  inmost  core 
I  saw  the  eternal  Godhead  glow 

And  the  heavenly  hosts  adore. 


122  HINTS 

A  Prayer 

COME  to  me,  woo  me,  Soul  of  the  All ! 
Early  and  late, 

As  I  labour,  I  wait 
For  thy  quickening  call. 
Carry  me  off,  O  thou  Soul  of  Desire, 

For  a  moment  of  bliss, 

To  the  central  abyss 
In    thy  chariot  of  fire  ! 
Let  me  know  in  the  long  quiet  years  that  succeed, 

Looking  down  from  above 

On  the  gross  forms  of  love, 
What  it  is  to  be  freed. 

Hints 

LITTLE  care  we  for  the  mark 
At  which  our  winged  words  are  aimed  ; 
Just  aside  there  in  the  dark 

Lurks  the  thought  we  never  named. 

So  the  vague  magnetic  pole 

In  the  boreal  skies  afar 
Like  a  disembodied  soul 

Haunts  the  obvious  polar  star. 
Not  the  star  at  which  we  gaze 

Thrills  and  joins  our  souls  on  high, 
But  the  one  whose  furtive  rays 

Catch  the  corner  of  our  eye. 
Not  the  songs  the  poet  sings 

Set  our  ears  and  hearts  a-ringing, 
But  unutterable  things 

Which  he  stops  just  short  of  singing. 


APOLOGIA  123 


Apologia 

I 

I   PULLED  up  the  flowers  in  my  garden,  for 
I  had  learned  that  they  were  poisonous. 
Yet  I  loved  them, — purple  and  red  and  white, — 

and  I  pulled  them  up  with  tears. 
My  garden  was  a  desert  and  my  garden  was 

all  my  life. 

In  the  morning  I  went  to  weep  again  in  my 
garden,  and  I  found  these  pansies  growing 
wild  where  my  tears  had  fallen. 

II 

A  motto  for  critics,  Be  silent  on  your  blind  side  ! 
There  are  things  that  you  reck  not  of. 
There  are  worlds  that  you  know  not. 
There  are  forces  to  which  you  are  impervious. 
No  one  of  us  can  see  and  appreciate  the  whole. 
Let  us  then  hold  our  peace  in  the  dark. 

Ill 

We  who  have  been  there  have  all  beheld  the 
same  landscape. 

We  make  use  of  different  symbols, — we  may 
seem  to  talk  contrariwise, — we  may  even 
misunderstand  and  denounce  each  other, — 


124  APOLOGIA 

but  read  between  the  lines  and  you  will 

perceive  that  our  descriptions  tally. 
If  we  repeated  each  other's  story  by  rote,  like 

the  witnesses  in  an  Oriental  law-suit,  you 

would  do  well  to  disbelieve  us ; 
But  note  our  divergencies  and  our  enthusiasm 

and  recognise  the  very  ear-marks  of  truth. 
Trace  them  back  to  their  misty,  radiant  source, 

and  you  will  apprehend  the  only  thing 

worth  knowing. 


IV 

You  must  listen  to  me  for  I  have  something 
to  say. 

You  will  not  like  my  form  of  speech,  but  I 
know  no  other. 

You  will  resent  my  sharp  words,  but  I  have  no 
blunt  arrows  in  my  quiver. 

You  will  try  to  shake  me  off  and  go  to  sleep 
again,  but  I  will  not  be  shaken  off ;  and 
even  into  your  sleep  I  will  inject  the  fer- 
ment of  my  dreams. 


My  ideas  dangerous  ? 

But  how  is  it  with  your  own  ? 

Your  idea  for  instance  that  it  is  quite  right  for 
men  in  uniform  to  slaughter  each  other, — • 
an  idea  which  slays  its  thousands  every 
day? 


APOLOGIA  125 

Your  idea  that  it  is  proper  for  you  to  pocket 
as  much  of  other  men's  earnings  as  the  law 
allows, — an  idea  which  fills  the  world  with 
poverty,  starvation,  disease  and  death. 

And  all  your  other  silly  time-worn  ideas. 

Is  it  your  ideas  or  mine  that  are  dangerous  ? 


VI 

(After  the  Chinese.) 

I  played  my  lute  to  the  world,  but  the  world 
danced  not  and  went  on  its  way  unheeding. 

Only  here  and  there  I  saw  a  solitary  dancer, 
unnoticed  of  the  rest,  in  an  obscure 
corner. 

And  I  grieved  at  the  world,  for  I  loved  my 
music. 

But  when  I  looked  again  and  discerned  who 
they  were  that  danced  to  my  lute,  for- 
sooth I  sorrowed  no  longer  ; 

For  they  were  the  children  of  the  new  day. 


126  AFTERTHOUGHT 


Afterthought 

T/f/rHEN  these  new  ideas  of  ours  become 
yy  trite  — 

When  they  pass  glibly  current  from  mouth  to 
mouth  without  conviction  or  comprehen- 
sion,— 

When  the  clean-cut  edge  of  the  mintage  is  rubbed 
off  and  the  impression  half  obliterated, — 

Then  there  will  be  a  shade  of  sadness  even  in 
victory  ; — 

Then  we  shall  have  to  pray  for  the  advent  of  new 
truths  and  new  heretics. 


Butler  and  Tanner  The  Selwood  Printing  Works  Frome  and  London 


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